


when the levee breaks

by fuhllmetal



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AN EARLY ON (KIND OF OBVIOUS) TWIST, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pidge, almost ridiculous eventual escalation, earth invasion, meeting family after being gone sad times, midkey inter-team voltron strife, ocs are for furthering plot and giving the paladins some hell, pidge is a genius and hacks the garrison's youtube, return to earth, the government being real sticky but who can blame them lbr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7569715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuhllmetal/pseuds/fuhllmetal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Galra have finally discovered Earth's location. They're on a course for the Paladins' home planet, and with only a matter of months left before Zarkon finishes mobilizing his forces for a full scale invasion, Voltron has to step up to the plate and address Earth directly.<br/>So, clearly, Pidge is going to hack the Garrison's YouTube page and livestream a very important message for the human race.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: initial broadcast

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, yes the title is from the led zeppelin song  
> second, this is AGAIN! not the thing i was expecting to post but last time going with my gut worked out pretty well i'd say so here we are  
> i don't have ultra set in stone plans for this fic, but i have a general idea, so let's see where this adventure takes us  
> (note: the chapters WILL be longer than this in the future, but making this chapter longer/lumping it in with another one felt wrong to me so it's a sort of short standalone)

The camera cut on to reveal what the eye out of the know would recognize to be a particularly convincing sci-fi movie set. The frame was out of focus, its subject a chrome-colored, metal-plated wall. There were a few indistinct mumblings off to the side.

“Just calm down, we’re live,” a voice off to the right said, louder than the others, and a hush fell over the feed. Someone hissed a few choice words, and heeled shoes clacked across a floor. A figure appeared in the frame.

Her face was lit up in unearthly purplish light coming from a source behind the camera, highlighting the light pink dashes on her brown skin just above her cheek. They didn’t seem like makeup. Her stark white hair was pulled up back from her face to reveal earrings that seemed to defy gravity. Her face was drawn in a serious expression, even if her purple eyes twinkled with a hint of something else behind them.

 

“People of Earth, I have an important message for you. If you are currently watching this broadcast, it pains me to inform you, at such an unfortunate time rather than a peaceful one, that you are not only not alone in the universe, but that it is also not a friendly place at the moment.” She began speaking practiced and deliberate, but her eyes were fixated on the camera, making it clear that she was speaking from the heart.

“I am Princess Allura, and I hail from the former planet Altea.” Her voice caught on the word ‘former,’ but she continued without a further hitch. “I come here on a mission of peace and friendship, seeking a possible alliance between Earth and the organization that I am representing - the Voltron Paladins. This alliance is in your best interests, as currently Voltron is the only thing standing between this galaxy’s worst enemy and its innocent inhabitants.”

Allura paused, looking off camera for a moment, and then back.

 

“This enemy is known as the Galran Empire. The Galra were not always a malevolent force, but that was a time long, long ago. Now they are being guided by an evil man known as Zarkon, and he has set his sights on Earth, something he would not have done previously. The reason he is so interested in your - I’m sorry to say - underdeveloped planet is because some of those leading the fight against him have a personal stake in Earth and its continued existence.” She looks off the camera again, gesturing for someone else to come forward. A few moments pass, her gaze still fixed away, but it returns.

A figure wearing a suit of black and white armor better suited to the set of a Star Wars film stepped out from beyond the camera’s view and stood next to her. He held his head high, a shock of white hair just shy of falling in his eyes and a long, dark scar across the bridge of his nose. He was clearly trying to seem as professional and stern as possible, but as he began to speak, sheepishness seeped through his facade.

 

“You may recognize me. My name is Takashi Shirogane, and I’ve been gone for quite a while now,” he began, unable to resist cracking a smile for a moment. He stomped it down and continued. “Four years ago I embarked with my crew on the mission to Kerberos, and five months in, I’ve heard that my crew and I were declared dead after our craft went missing. In reality, it wasn’t ‘pilot error’ that was the cause of our disappearance, but an alien abduction.” His speech halted and he took a moment to gain his bearings. The princess looked on with concern but didn’t say anything.

“We were abducted by agents of the Galran Empire and Matthew Holt, one of my crew, and I were taken to a gladiatorial arena while Matthew’s father was taken to a labor camp. I managed to escape alone about three years ago, and even though I’ve been searching, I still haven’t found the Holts or heard much of their whereabouts.” He swallowed, his eyes not meeting the camera’s lens for a longer beat this time. The princess placed a hand on his shoulder, and he looked to her for a moment before looking back to the camera, a steely determination set in his eyes again.

“I escaped with a small Galran craft and navigated myself back to Earth about three years ago. I crash landed on Galaxy Garrison property in the middle of the Nevada Desert, and soon after that Garrison staff were sent to ‘retrieve’ me. I attempted to explain myself and tell them of a way to prevent the possible coming invasion of Earth that I’d learnt of during my time in captivity, but they knocked me out. However, I was rescued,” his face took on a wry smile, “by a group of former Garrison cadets.”

There was laughing off screen. The princess shushed it, and Shirogane smiled warmly at the source before directing his gaze back to the camera. His smile didn’t fade this time.

 

“Their names are Keith Kogane, Lance Sanchez, Hunk Mahi’ai, and Pidge Holt,” he said. He motioned with his hand, and a group of four people walked into the frame. Attempted to walk into the frame, more like, because it was far too close up for all of them to fit. The cameraperson took a step back, revealing the whole group and the edge of a window out to outer space.

All four of them were wearing suits similar to Shirogane’s, but each one had a different color where black was on the former’s. They all wore varied facial expressions, from carefully blank to unabashedly ecstatic, shy to wry. The princess stood to the side while Shirogane moved himself to be closer to the camera without obscuring the rest of the group from view.

“Thanks to some careful observation of strange phenomena in the desert, Keith directed us towards some strange readings inside of a canyon after I came to, making the proposition that it was related to what I was yelling about before the Garrison people knocked me out. We found ruins filled with strange carvings and paintings of a blue lion. The art on the walls lit up and after the ground gave out beneath us, we happened upon a piece of the universe’s last line of defense - Voltron. I’m not as qualified to talk about the details as Allura is,” Shirogane finished, gesturing to Allura to continue for him.

 

“Voltron is a superweapon formed by the Five Lions and the strength of the bond between their Paladins, or pilots. One of the lions, the Blue, was hidden on Earth by my father after the destruction of Altea roughly ten thousand years ago. The rest were hidden in a variety of equally far out places to keep them out of the clutches of Zarkon, but he managed to get his hands on the Red. We still don’t know how, as my companion, Coran, and I were both in deep cryostasis at the time.” The princess looked to Shirogane who seamlessly picked up his part of the explanation again.

“After finding the Blue Lion, which Lance pilots, we were directed to a wormhole taking us to the planet that Allura and Coran were on cryostasis at - Arus. We arrived at the Castle of Lions - where we're broadcasting from - and awoke them accidentally from their sleep and after figuring out what exactly was going on, we went off in search of the rest of the Lions.

“We found them all and after a run in with a Galran battlecruiser, we formed Voltron for the first time. After that, the Galra were on us constantly for three years, even separating us for quite a while at one point. It’s all been building to the point we’re at now,” Shirogane took a deep breath before he said the last part of his speech.

“Through a series of complicated events that are honestly not worth the time we don’t have to explain, Zarkon discovered Earth’s location and is currently gearing up for a full-scale invasion and takeover of our planet. We don’t actually know how much time we have before he and his forces arrive, but at most, we have six months.”

 

A silence fell over the broadcast. Allura had stepped out of the frame in the middle of Shirogane’s speech. Its remaining subjects were doing their best to keep it together, obvious at the moment that the truth fell from Shirogane’s lips that they were running on fumes. There was still that same steely determination behind Shirogane’s eyes behind all of their eyes, though, and this time, the one in blue spoke.

“Believe me when I say I know how ridiculous all of this sounds. Ask the me of three years ago if I thought I’d be where I am right now and I would ask if you needed a drink of water and money for a cab back home, but this is one hundred percent true and just as serious as it sounds.” He paused, fidgeting with his hands.

“I’ve missed Earth deeply in the time I’ve been gone, knowing it was too dangerous to return, and coming back is really bittersweet, considering the circumstances. But,” he said, his tone changing abruptly at the end. “Voltron is the best the universe has got and we’re going to do everything we can to keep Earth safe and out of Galran hands.”

 

“If you think this isn’t real - if you think it’s seven jackasses with a green screen and too much time on their hands - we’ll give you the proof that this is serious tomorrow. We’re going to be touching down in a for-now undisclosed place to prove that point,” the one in red said, his voice quiet but powerful. Shirogane regarded him with thinly veiled disapproval, but he didn’t interrupt him.

“Even though it could have been phrased better,” Shirogane began, giving the one in red a very pointed look, “the Castle will be setting down in the middle of the ocean tomorrow. We still haven’t decided which one. Even though we’re pretty sure they’ll be able to find us themselves, we’ll contact the United Nations first so we don’t start a war.” His expression shifted from serious to softer, a small smile appearing on his face.

 

“And to our families, we’re all sorry that we’ve been gone so long, but we’re home now.”

The transmission cut out then, the last thing viewers saw being all five waving, mournful smiles on their faces.


	2. i: landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things start heating up on earth, and no one is sure what to believe - but no one wants to believe that the earth will really be invaded.  
> meanwhile, the castle of lions is about to set down on the blue planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is split a little funky but it's better than having a like. 700 word chapter or something so here ya go  
> this is just the beginning of earth's reaction, too, because i'm sure that Theoretically, the government would try to get a handle on the situation before loosing the paladins on the world ya dig (so no morning talk show interviews or lance walking into central park and setting up a booth to sign autographs. Yet)
> 
> the response to this fic was sooooo lovely that it honestly blew me away a bit so i hope this is up to your expectations!!

The media had a field day.

 

CNN was hosting round the clock coverage, analyzing every single second of the video down to the last detail. Takashi Shirogane’s face only left the television screen if it was being replaced with Princess Allura’s face or one of the faces of the other four people in the video.

Conspiracy theory websites were doing close ups of every single frame and debating the possibility that the whole video was filmed on a green screen and had the budget of a summer blockbuster, considering how high quality the makeup or CGI would have to be to be as convincing as it was, especially in real time. Someone on Reddit tried to track the IP address from which the Garrison’s feed was hacked, but to no avail, as it was encrypted in such a fashion that they had never seen before.

The identities of the four people were investigated almost too deeply, Twitter running wild and practically doxxing everyone involved. “Pidge Holt” gave researchers some issues, but after comparing their face to the faces of Commander Holt and his son Matthew Holt, it was clear that “Pidge” was "Katie" Holt of the very same Holt clan. This only sparked more speculation that this was all a set-up by the Garrison, a government organization, to distract the people from a litany of different disasters that varied depending on the post.

The hashtag #EarthInvasion had its own emoji, which some people found a little distasteful. The official Kentucky Fried Chicken account tweeted, “Do you think aliens like chicken? #OfCourseTheyDo #Earth Invasion,” and the tweet was deleted five minutes later.

The Washington Post found Maria Sanchez, mother of Lance Sanchez, first and attempted to interview her, but she provided no comment. They tried the same with the Mahi’ai family, and the answer was the same. Anne Holt wouldn’t answer Garrison phone calls, according to the Garrison rumor mill. The Garrison itself was silent about the whole ordeal.

 

In short, it was a shitstorm. No one seemed to want to address the idea that the Earth could be invaded head on, either. Only a few news outlets went into detail with possible scenarios, but the rest were focused on debunking the livestream itself to avoid mentioning their message in the first place.

 

About eight hours after the livestream ended, the United States government released a statement. Evidently, this couldn’t be swept under the rug as easily as they hoped, so they were facing it head on. The President sat at his desk, a solemn look on his face, and he addressed the nation:

“Good evening, my fellow Americans - and fellow people of Earth. The White House can confirm correspondence with the organization that hacked the Galaxy Garrison Youtube webpage. I am also here to announce official first contact with extraterrestrial life. More information will be released as its made available, but I ask that you stay calm and leave this situation in proper hands. We, the human race, must stand in solidarity.”

The reaction to his statement was lukewarm at best, and downright vitriolic at worst.

 

Finally, a full 24 hours passed since the livestream went up. Speculation about when the “Voltron Paladins” would land was at its height since that morning, the people of Earth beyond restless. The United Nations was silent about the location of landing, or if a landing was even approved in the first place. Some looked to SETI and private companies with telescopes for information, but likely bound by law, they were silent.

At five o’clock that evening, a leaked video of a sleek, four-pronged spaceship setting down in what seemed to be the middle of the Nevada desert made its way onto Twitter before it was promptly taken down after it reached over five thousand retweets. The credibility of the video wasn’t debated for long, because soon after, similar videos began popping up all over the internet, too many to be removed from servers fast enough.

A few people reportedly snuck past the barbed wire surrounding a particularly suspicious abandoned Air Force base. Propping themselves up just out of sight, they captured for Periscope the President’s three private black helicopters setting down five hundred feet away from the landed alien ship. Five minutes into the video, seven figures, mere specks, came out of the ship. The feed ended with shouting and a few muttered ‘ _oh shit_ ’s. At that point it was nearly impossible to deny that this was real.

—

Shiro breathed in deeply. He subsequently exhaled, the air rushing out of his lungs as slowly as he could get it to, and he regarded himself in the mirror. The bags under his eyes were a little unsightly, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Looking away from his reflection, he ran a hand through his fringe. Allura and Coran were handling their descent into Earth’s atmosphere. They told the Paladins with understanding smiles that they had fifteen minutes to prepare before they made ground contact, and that the two of them would make an announcement when they had video feed with the President and his entourage.

They had made contact with the United Nations the night before. The council before them was stiff and uncomfortable, their eyes darting between his and Allura’s faces as if deciding which to be more bewildered by.

The council had heard them out concerning the threat Zarkon posed to Earth and the urgency of the situation and, after deeming that this wasn’t an elaborate ruse, permitted them landing privileges in the middle of some abandoned base in the middle of Nevada. Allura mentioned that the Castle could land on water if it made them more comfortable, but the council looked decidedly less comfortable at that revelation.

They, namely Pidge, received a slap on the wrist for hacking into private Garrison internet property, but it seemed these officials were genuinely scared of them, so no real punishment was issued. Lance, when he was allowed to speak, even attempted to make a joke to lighten the mood. Half the people in the room flinched as if struck.

 

Taking another deep breath and releasing it, Shiro closed his eyes to try and center himself. There was a fear nagging at the back of his mind, telling him that this was a trap and that he would just end up in captivity again. They had clearly tried once, and he wouldn’t put it past the United States government to try again.

He had only two reassuring thoughts to combat his worry. First of all, barring nuclear weapons, the Castle and its Paladins clearly had the tactical advantage in this situation if it came to that. Second, they had made their return as public as they feasibly could, so if something did go wrong, the whole world would know. He hoped that was enough of a deterrent for military force.

“Welcome home, Paladins,” came Allura’s voice over the intercom. Shiro’s throat caught, but he swallowed as much of his apprehension as he could bear, and strode out of his room and to the main deck where Allura and Coran waited for them.

 

When Shiro got there, the other four were filing into the room as well. Each looked their own brand of filled to the brim with anxiety and fear, but their expression were also tinged with a unique hope. This was a homecoming, after all, even if it was for pretty grim reasons.

Keith drifted over to Shiro’s left and gave him a reassuring hand on his arm. Shiro looked to him, forcing a small smile, and Keith smiled back. It was just as forced, but that was enough to put him at ease.

Allura caught their attention.

 

“I’ve already made contact with our escorts, and they said that we will be the ones to come out first. They also told us that there will be soldiers coming out of the vehicles, but they’re only there for security’s sake and that we are not under attack. After they determine that it’s safe, we are to remotely activate the particle barrier around the ship and board their vehicles,” she said.

“Vehicles?” Pidge echoed.

“I’m afraid I forgot what they’re called. Heli…helicapters?” she said, unsure. Shiro cracked a real smile at that.

“Helicopters?” he provided. She nodded gratefully.

“Yes, those. There are three, again for security reasons, but we will all be boarding one.” Allura motioned to the view screen where three helicopters had just set down on the sand.

 

“Do you know where they’re taking us?” Keith asked. Allura’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“They wouldn’t reveal that to me. They said it was security reasons, but…” She trailed off. Shiro’s blood ran cold and his heart sped up; he felt Keith grab his elbow again.

“Well, we’ll have our bayards on us still, right? They won’t know we have ‘em, so no matter what they do, we got it!” Lance said, looking to everyone’s faces with a hopeful grin. Hunk shrugged noncommittally, and Pidge pointedly looked away without answering.

Keith opened his mouth to retort, but after looking back at Shiro, he closed it. Shiro figured that Keith didn’t want to escalate the situation, and he was grateful to both of them - to Lance for trying to placate them all, and to Keith for not pointing out all of the obvious flaws in Lance’s statement.

Pidge’s eyes suddenly lit up.

 

“Wait.” Everyone looked to them. “What if I told you all that I may have wired a camera into my helmet and synced it up with my laptop so it can access the internet and that we could use that to stream everything that’s happening?” A devilish smile grew across their face as they spoke.

“Yeah, great idea, until you remember that they’re not going to know we’re filming, and by the time people know something bad happened to us, _something bad will have happened to us._ ” Keith retorted, crossing his arms.

“We could just tell them we’re filming when we’re already moving?” Hunk suggested. Allura looked at him with wide eyes. “Okay, nevermind, forget I said anything.”

“We could ask them if we could film everything that’s happening.” Shiro said, finding his voice. Everyone looked to him like he had three heads. “ _I_ could ask, not outright threaten them, but maybe, I dunno, suggest a few things. They couldn’t refuse Takashi Shirogane, could they?” He tried for a chuckle.

 

“I say it’s worth a shot,” Coran supplied.

“Have you met the United States military?” Keith exclaimed, incredulous. He rounded on Shiro. “You can’t be sure they’re not going to blow our heads off just for asking. We’re fugitives - aliens.” Everyone in the room visibly winced, probably because they knew it was true.

“I get your point, but they know we have the advantage here, even if we are on their soil. That’s why we’re getting into their helicopters, away from the Castle and what they assume to be all of our weapons. If we ask while we’re still in the Castle, we’re more likely to get our way.” Shiro replied, doing his best to keep his tone even. Keith glowered at him but backed down.

Allura opened her mouth to respond to Shiro’s supposition, but then the view screen in front of her started blinking. Someone was trying to contact them.

 

“On screen,” Allura said. A woman’s face popped into view. She was decked out in heavy duty military gear, and her backdrop was clearly the inside of a helicopter. Shiro glanced to the three helicopters parked outside of the castle and made a fair assumption that she was in one of them.

“I’m going to set down some ground rules for this exchange,” she began, not waiting for Allura to greet her. “You will refer to me as Commander and Commander only. I will be transporting you to a government safe house for threat assessment before you meet with the crisis team. Before you step out of your vessel, you are to remove any and all weapons on your persons, as you will be searched. Your vessel will be required to put up its shields and locked to outside access until you are cleared to return. Am I clear?”

“Very. But, we have one request before we begin.” Allura smiled back. Shiro could tell from here she was doing her best to keep her eye from twitching.

“Make it quick. We have a schedule to keep.” The woman crossed her arms, regarding Allura with deep suspicion. Allura motioned for Shiro to come over.

 

“For our own security, we’re requesting permission to film the exchange and transfer to the safe house. This won’t be released to the web in any manner, and we’ll allow the government to view the feed and delete it after we’re sure that the situation is clear. Will you allow this?” Shiro did his best to sound pleasant but vaguely threatening, attempting to hold their position in the Castle over the Commander’s head without ever mentioning it. It was as difficult as it sounded. She regarded him with even more suspicion than she did Allura.

“How will we be tracking the feed?” she asked slowly.

“Our resident hacker has modified a helmet with the ability to record and stream video, and instead of directing the feed to the internet, we could put it through a secure government server, heavily encrypted, of course.” Shiro replied easily. The Commander was silent. Just as he was beginning to sweat, she made eye contact and nodded solemnly. Hunk put a hand over Lance’s mouth as a loud ‘whoop’ escaped it.

 

“I’ll allow it. Only under one condition, though - you will give the government the key that breaks your encryption.” The Commander smirked.

Shiro could practically feel Pidge’s haunches raising behind him, but he didn’t turn around because he knew it would only make what he was about to say weigh even more on his consciousness. They needed this badly, so that was a sacrifice they had to make.

“Of course.” Shiro smiled tightly, and the Commander returned it with an even tighter one. “Permission to board, ma’am?”

“Granted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little note: while writing this chapter, especially the parts where someone is talking about the president, i kept laughing a bit to myself because i would remember how ridiculous it is to hear sonic the hedgehog talking about The President in sonic adventure 2 which never fails to make me giggle
> 
> thanks for reading as always and leave a comment for what you liked/what i could improve on/and speculation for what you think i'm going to do next!!


	3. i: test(y) flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pidge is a sassy motherfucker who needs to control their issues with authority a bit better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha whoops i was going to write this earlier than i did but then i saw star trek beyond (A MILLION TIMES BETTER THAN I WAS EXPECTING IT TO BE BTW?) and a voltron star trek au sort of took over my attention a little bit  
> (by the way: be on the lookout for that)  
> still. this is out in a sort of timely manner and it's longer than usual so i hope that makes up for leaving you guys hanging last chapter!

Shiro had never been in a helicopter. He’d been in all manner of flying transportation, from hoverbikes and jets to rocket ships and flying lions, but there was nothing quite like a vehicle that flew at the same altitude as a plane with what looked like half of the door material separating him from a multi-thousand foot drop. Needless to say he was a bit on edge.

The sheer primal fear that he was going to just accidentally step out of the helicopter wasn’t the only thing bugging him, though. The shared flight-related anxiety of his crew was another big contributor, too, but that still wasn’t it. Shiro wasn’t sure that they’d be able to actually get Earth ready in time.

Considering the heavy resistance they were already met with, imagining how much more red tape and disbelief coming their way physically hurt. The Commander, while being privy to seeing the Castle of Lions close up, still looked wholly unconvinced of their claim that Earth was truly in danger, even after Allura attempted to start a conversation on the matter.

 

“I’m not authorized to have that conversation at this time. Just shut your trap and wait until we get to the safe house.”

Clearly the Commander was someone who didn’t subscribe to ‘seeing is believing,’ or ‘hearing’ or any other singular sense. While Shiro knew the whole military hierarchy deal personally, and he wasn’t surprised by the Commander’s resistance examining it purely from that angle, something about the situation still bugged him regardless.

Earth’s reaction to an alien invasion seemed a bit too routine for his liking. Not that having a plan was a bad thing - that was the small part of this terrible course of events that he managed to glean some satisfaction from - but his sixth sense for danger was on red alert.

Looking over to Keith and judging by the way his hackles were raised like a cornered cat’s, he was equally as disturbed by the way their meeting was playing out, if not more.

 

Meanwhile, Pidge was deep in setting up the camera in their helmet. They were already halfway there, as they anticipated the need arising after their initial livestream, and they already had experience with setting up cameras in similar situations. This was just another going-through-the-motions endeavor, except this time they had to reveal their secret ingredient to their personal, time-tested espionage recipe.

Even though they understood why Shiro did it, Pidge still was ungodly levels of pissed at him for promising this military woman they likely couldn’t trust Pidge’s singular most important thing they’d crafted over their past two years with Voltron. While they weren’t thoughtless enough to use the same encryption code for everything, this one was important enough to them that it would be a real pain in the ass to have to craft one just as good and then replace all of their old setups with new ones so the United States government couldn’t snoop on them more than they already were going to.

Wouldn’t it have just been easier to not violate Pidge’s virtual sanctuary and just sneak in a camera? It’s not like they would even notice. If Pidge could sneak past Garrison security at all years ago with absolutely no helpful tech, they should certainly be able to sneak past another government agency’s security with all of the helpful tech they have now. That wasn’t mentioning the fact that they got caught before, but still. That wasn’t relevant to the point they were making.

 

Getting angry during this delicate work wasn’t doing Pidge any favors, but they had to finish rigging up the camera before the helicopter landed so they could ensure that no funny business was going down. Even though they and their fellow Paladins still had their bayards (or in Shiro’s case, his arm) on them, they did recognize that it would be better for it not to come to that. That’s the only reason they were putting up with Shiro’s proposition in the first place.

Connecting the final wire into place, Pidge let out a quiet ‘ _aha_ ’ of success and sat back to admire their work. The camera was very discreet, only noticeable to them because they were the one who rigged the damn thing, and the soft whirring they heard when they put the helmet on indicated that it was indeed working. They took their helmet off to examine their work from the outside again, a grin on their face.

 

“Got it working?” The Commander asked, voice gruff. Pidge’s expression soured immediately. Right. They had to work with her still.

“Of course. Not exactly a hard job,” they replied, reigning in the temptation to give into their temper after a pointed look from both Shiro and Allura at the same time.

“Fine. Type in the key before you start it up. We’ll need to confirm that it’s correct, so we’ll also need a device already encrypted with that code.” The Commander held out a tablet to Pidge. They crinkled their nose.

“You didn’t mention anything about that,” they said. The Commander sighed deeply and crossed her arms.

“You think we’d just let you right down any old string and give you the benefit of the doubt? Sorry, kid, but we have no reason to implicitly trust any of you lot. At all.”

 

Everyone bristled at that comment. Pidge already knew that that was the case, but hearing it so plainly stated was a tad disorienting. Yeah, okay, it sort of made sense that they were regarded in such a suspicious light, but it wasn’t in their favor to lie. In fact, lying would be a huge mistake at this point in the game because of how easily it could catch up with them. It might even be more of a mistake than not telling them about the camera in the first place!

Pidge looked to the other Paladins for help. The rest of them seemed as equally out of their depth as Pidge was, and in Lance’s case three seconds away from an explosion, so it was left to them to take the initiative, evidently. Of course, they could wait a few more seconds and Shiro or Allura would step in, but ultimately, this was their call. They were the one who wrote the code, weren’t they?

God, Pidge hated this.

 

They begrudgingly pulled out one of their more irrelevant little tablets they stored in one of the compartments in their armor. They had a lot of these lying around, at least two on their person at all times, so at least that habit finally paid off.

“This is just a personal tablet. I’ll give you the code that unlocks it, which is also the encryption code I’m using for the camera’s feed, but after you confirm it works, give it back immediately. The information on it isn’t relevant to you,” Pidge warned, giving the tablet over to the Commander.

The Commander regarded the object with curiosity, then vague disdain, and she put it down on the floor next to her. She gently placed the toe of her boot over the corner of the device as if someone was going to bend down and steal it when she wasn’t looking. Pidge caught Lance rolling his eyes out of the corner of their eye.

“Type it in. Quick.” Pidge took the other, larger tablet from the Commander and set to work typing in the code. They were lucky that they decided to encrypt completely in the Roman alphabet - much more secure than Altean in deep space, it turns out - because otherwise, this would have been much more difficult and beyond invasive, as it would probably require the Commander having physical access to the Castle’s terminals. The fact that it hadn’t come to that was one of Pidge’s only comforts.

 

They typed it in slowly and surely, checked it twice over for errors, and then handed the tablet back to the Commander. They swore they felt a part of their soul come out of their body and get transferred away with the line of characters on the screen. The Commander read over the code, lifted Pidge’s tablet, and began typing her part. After a couple minutes, she squinted at the screen and then returned Pidge’s tablet. A quick once over revealed she hadn’t looked through…much. Typical.

“You’re clear. For now. We’ll have to test this code on more devices at a later time, but since that option isn’t available to us now and you did uphold your end of the bargain, you’re permitted to film,” the Commander said, resigned. “But. You are only allowed to start after we touch down and after we’ve confirmed that you’re configured on our servers.”

“Is this going to require you looking through more of my personal information?” Pidge realized that this was probably one of the worst things they could have said at that moment, but they couldn’t bring themself to care enough to even have the decency to clap an embarrassed hand over their mouth.

Allura’s eyes were boring holes in the side of Pidge’s skull. They didn’t need to look over to confirm that, either; they could _feel_ it.

 

“Wow, that’s a pretty funny joke, Pidge; they’re a real card, right? _Man_ ,” Hunk was laughing hysterically now, wiping at tears forming at the corners of his eyes and slapping Pidge on the back. Hunk did have a tendency to release bodily fluids under pressure.

“It wasn’t a j-“ Pidge began, but they were cut off by Lance’s shaking hand blocking their mouth from saying anything else. They tried to utter some indignant string of curses, but Lance whispered in their ear.

“ _Buddy, please, I don’t want to die yet._ ” If he hadn’t sounded so dead serious, Pidge would have started laughing just as hard as Hunk still was.

 

Pidge pried Lance’s hand off their mouth, resisting the urge to make the situation worse by licking it instead, and clammed up. Fine. They’d play along. They would not apologize, though. No way in hell.

Hunk’s laughter died down, Allura’s eyes drifted off to stare angrily at something else instead, and the Commander didn’t grace Pidge’s initial indictment with any kind of response. Pidge supposed they were supposed to feel grateful.

 

The silence stretched for a beat or few longer. Eventually the Commander signaled for Pidge to start setting up the camera feed with her, and they followed her instructions with poorly-hid shaking hands. They weren’t intimidated by her whole military persona, as they already saw enough of that to know they had a lot more than some big egos to worry about right now; they were just failing to mask their irritation. If they didn’t think Shiro would try to intervene the next time they tried to start something, they would have been much more overt about it, too, but even Pidge knew it wasn’t worth the risk.

Keith was surprisingly quiet through all of Pidge’s passive-aggressive temper tantrum. Knowing him, it either because he didn’t want to be in the blast zone in case he wanted to get his own shot in later, or he was appreciating Pidge doing God’s work. Hell, it could be both.

 

After Pidge got the camera set up without incident and the Commander looked like she’d be finally leaving them alone for the rest of the ride, they let out a covert sigh of relief. Now they had about fifteen minutes to stew in the aggressive sound of helicopter blades chopping at the wind above and Hunk’s thigh’s incessant jittering and bouncing against their own leg.

Even Allura didn’t try to start up pleasant small talk until they landed. That was certainly a warning flag if Pidge ever saw one, as the only species they ever met that were unwilling to talk to Allura usually ended up shooting at them by the end of their meeting. That either meant she was an incredible or terrible diplomat, and because Pidge had zero experience in the field, they went with the more conscience-easing former option.

 

When they did land, Hunk and Lance tumbled out of the door and fell to their knees, worshipping the ground. Allura got out next, scolding them for putting on such a scene, but the usual half-bite from her usual tone reserved for these occasions was gone. Pidge and Keith exited from opposite sides of the helicopter, but Keith deliberately walked over to Pidge to give them a silent clap on the back. He stalked off before Pidge could say anything, and Shiro came up behind them to direct them in the direction the Commander was moving.

They met up with Coran, who had been traveling on one of the other helicopters because of space complications, and he didn’t say much. He and Allura made some significant-looking eye contact, but they didn’t exchange any words.

The safe house was about two miles up a trail leading up a mountain. Wracking their brain for the United States geography Pidge figured they’d never have to remember again before today, they deduced that their party was probably in the Rockies right now. Where in the Rockies was an excellent question that they didn’t have an answer to, but it seemed that that wasn’t that important anyway, considering civilization was too far out to access regardless.

 

The trek up the mountain was relatively uneventful. Allura looked clearly enraptured with the very Earth-y greenery surrounding them, making quiet comments over to Coran and Shiro every so often. Shiro was actually smiling at the Alteans’ interest, somehow managing to find joy in this very ‘death-march’-feeling hike, and he would point out certain trees or flowers whenever an interesting one would cross their path.

Keith was sticking close to the Commander’s back at the front. His right arm hung close to his thigh as if he was ready to materialize his bayard and slice off the head of whatever unfortunate creature managed to get in his way. Hunk and Lance hung back behind the rest of the party, having a quiet conversation that sounded a lot like a pity party. Pidge could sympathize, but they weren’t really interested in having any personal conversations with the camera hooked up to them.

At one point, Shiro drifted over to ask how they were doing, and they motioned as subtly to the camera as they could without getting it captured on film. Shiro thinned his lips into an apologetic line and put a comforting hand on Pidge’s shoulder. He sprinted up to meet Keith afterwards, and that was when Pidge pointedly lost interest in Shiro’s movements. The longer they had the camera hooked up to them, the more they didn’t feel comfortable recording their crewmates interacting.

 

Pidge was just about to try and make it to the head of the pack, even closer to the Commander than Keith and Shiro, so they wouldn’t run the risk of recording something private when the party finally reached the safe house.

It was a dilapidated old shack, or it at least looked that way from the outside. Pidge was sure that it was actually some kind of high-tech bunker underneath all of the rotting wood and torn up barbed wire around the perimeter of the crumbling foundation.

 

“We’re here,” the Commander announced, as if it wasn’t already obvious. “Wait a moment outside so I can alert the crisis team, and don’t even think about trying anything funny because we have a live feed on you. Not just your helmet camera, either.”

She pointed to a little nook in between two pieces of rotting plywood above the doorframe. Squinting, Pidge could just barely make out the glint of a camera lens. Great. They were being _double_ filmed.

“I’ll be back within ten minutes. Stand here, talk amongst yourselves, whatever. Just don’t go anywhere.”

 

And she was gone, disappearing into the eerie darkness of the old shack. Pidge sighed. Zarkon was probably laughing at them right about now.


	4. i: interrogation session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this lion's den is not very friendly to actual lions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this update is showing up a TAD later than i had hoped, but don't worry - it's extra long to make up for that! i'm also pleased to announce that i've finished plotting out the rest of this story and it'll be in a typical 5 act structure, with the first chapter being a prologue of sorts and each act being three chapters long (at least, that's the way i'm hoping it'll turn out)  
> that means: chapters more around the length of this one in the future! yay!  
> so without further ado, the conclusion chapter to act 1.

The ten minutes slipped by painfully slowly, all of the Paladins too on edge to hold a conversation. They glanced nervously between each other, sharing uncomfortable expressions, but not much else. Coran, to his credit, did try to start a conversation about a passing squirrel, but after picking up the atmosphere, he dropped it and observed the squirrel in silence.

Finally the Commander came back and ushered them in. They followed single file into the interior of the shack. Once all of them were in, the Commander walked across the nearly-pitch darkness to a faintly glowing panel. She typed in an 8 digit password. It analyzed her eye, fingerprints, and voice, and after processing the information, the door next to the dim panel slid open.

“Get in,” she commanded. Everyone followed her into an elevator that was just barely large enough for them all to fit, crushing Hunk and Shiro into the corners in the back, Lance and Keith between them. Pidge stood between Allura and Coran in the front left corner, and the Commander stood right next to the control panel on the right with a good six inches between her and everyone else.

 

She pressed a button on the panel, and the elevator began its shaky descent down the shaft.

“Cables are a bit rusty. We don’t use this dump very often,” she grunted.

“That must be a good thing, then,” Allura remarked quietly. The Commander nodded shortly, and that was that.

The elevator car rattled and groaned as it slowly went further and further down into the complex. Just as Shiro was about to speak up about the length of the journey, the car squealed softly and jolted to a stop. Hunk and Shiro were both snapped into the corners of the car, their heads hitting the wall, and Keith and Lance bounced between the two of them.

“Same,” Lance muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Keith and Hunk on either side of him to hear. Keith scoffed.

 

The doors slid open and revealed a dimly lit hallway that faded into darkness before ending. Both of its walls were lined with doors, labeled by number and eerily pristine.

“Why is everything so dark around here?” Lance groused. The Commander shot him a look, and he squeaked.

“Would you waste money lighting up a facility that’s only used in emergencies?” she asked, voice level.

“No ma’am,” he replied, the words tumbling out immediately. She narrowed her eyes and nodded.

 

Gesturing with an arm over her shoulder, the Commander led the party - single file again - down the hallway. She stopped at the third door on the right side of the corridor, knocked three times, and the door opened to reveal a sizable conference room.

In the middle was a giant, circular table. Around it sat six people, notebooks and pens in front of them, making quiet conversation. The talking stopped when the door opened and a seventh person stepped away from it and returned to their seat.

The Commander beckoned the Paladins to sit down around the table as she took her seat next to the seventh person. She exchanged glances with everyone else around the table, but they were too focused on the new arrivals to return her eye contact.

 

Allura sat down next to the Commander - taking one for the team. Coran sat next to her on the left, Pidge next to him, and then Hunk next to them. Lance took his seat quickly next to Hunk as if stealing it from Keith. Keith, doing a poor job of concealing a sigh, looked between the two seats left. Sit next to a stranger he didn’t trust, or sit next to…Lance. He sat next to the stranger. Shiro slipped in between him and Lance, and the meeting began.

“Voltron Paladins, meet the crisis team. Crisis team, Voltron Paladins.” The Commander gestured between both sides of the room. The Paladins’ half of the room nodded at the other half, and the nod was returned. “Let’s get introductions out of the way quickly so we can get this show on the road.”

“I’m Joss Wells - my partner, Acacius Hardy - and we’re with SETI, or the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence,” a person with long, dark brown hair tied into a ponytail began. Their partner, a man with short cropped black hair and huge glasses, waved and returned to taking notes. “We’ll be assisting in whatever way we can help you, but since we’re from a private organization, we can’t do as much as the government officials here.”  


Next, a small man with a thick crop of natural hair spoke up.

“Finn Archer, NASA,” he said, voice clipped. His partner, a very large man with a buzzcut, spoke up after him.

“Merc Kannoth, also NASA. Pleased to see you again, Captain Shirogane.” Merc let himself grin unrestrained in Shiro’s direction. Shiro paused, his face twisted in thought, before a smile bloomed across it in recognition. “We can catch up later, after we get this whole aliens thing sorted.”

“Of course,” Shiro said, half-breathless.

“Moving on,” urged the Commander. Permission to speak was transferred to the next person down the line, a sharp looking woman with ginger hair pinned back into a neat bun and a scowl on her face.

 

“Gael O’Connor. Central Intelligence Agency operative. You landed on United States soil, so that requires me to be here.” She squinted at the Paladins, regarding them deeply, before flicking her hand to the next person, a considerably more charismatic-looking woman.

“I’m Aziza Rashid, UN representative to extraterrestrial life - or in this case, an extraterrestrial organization with human members,” she said, her warmer, yet very restrained, demeanor coming off her in waves. “In other words, I’m Earth’s primary diplomat for you.”

“And we’re the representatives for the US military.” The Commander cut in, not waiting for Aziza to say she was finished. “You know me. This is my junior, Lieutenant Commander Vincent Accardi.” Vincent gave a cheesy, yet completely serious, salute from next to her. “Now that that’s out of the way,” she began, but she was cut off mid-sentence by Allura clearing her throat.

 

“Are we going to be introducing ourselves as well? It’s only fair,” Allura said, sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. The Commander narrowed her eyes.

“If you had let me finish, I would have said that you’d be doing that during the interrogation session.”

“Interrogation session?” Shiro bristled. “I thought this was a ‘meeting.’”

“Well, ‘interrogation’ isn’t completely incorrect,” Aziza replied. “We will be asking you questions about your experiences in outer space, especially in regards to these ‘Galra’ you spoke about earlier. But it isn’t not a meeting, either!”

“Just say it how it is, Rashid. It’s an interrogation.” Gael’s voice was flat and frank, on the line between sounding completely honest and too honest. “And drop the double negatives.”

 

“You’re not going to be, like, torturing us for information or anything, right?” Hunk asked, shivering in his boots.

“Of course not!” said four people all at once. The Commander looked side to side across the room a couple times to gauge the general reaction before begrudgingly shaking her head. That didn’t seem to assuage Hunk’s fears.

“Go ahead and ask us anything. We’re completely open to questions - right, Paladins?” Allura turned to look at the rest of the Paladins with a not-quite threat in her eyes, particularly aimed at the troublemakers of the group. They all nodded at varying speeds. Shiro still looked apprehensive, however, and Keith at his left was even more-so.

 

So the questions began. They started out going to Allura and Coran about the basics of their civilization, the Galra, and Voltron itself, and the two of them answered promptly and with much detail. They managed to keep it together when the destruction of Altea was inevitably brought up, a topic that was spoken about for too long for their liking, but soon enough it was over and the focus shifted over to Shiro instead.

Shiro was questioned about his time as a prisoner under the Galra. He told them that even after four years his memory of the event was still not completely together, something that Gael took as suspicious. She went especially hard-nose on the questioning with him, to the point that Keith stepped in and snapped at her when Shiro’s breathing hitched and his face went blank.

The room went silent for a minute after that, no one brave enough to speak, before Gael dismissed the topic - _“We have enough information to ascertain a proper threat level for the Galran Empire”_ \- and announced that they were moving on. The Commander was not pleased, as it was her job to decide those things evidently, but the rest of the room seemed to agree it was in their best interests not to dwell on it.

 

The topic then moved to the Paladins’ experiences during the past four years - specifically those involving serious conflicts with the Galra. Questioning became harder when it drifted into the time when the Paladins were all split up for about four months, as there were six different sides of the story to line up and combine, but after about two hours, they made it up to the present day.

“So if we’re hearing you right, you’re not sure if the Galra actually know of Earth’s specific position or not?” Joss asked, chewing on the cap at the end of his pen.

“No, but we do know that they know at the very least the general neighborhood of solar systems that it resides in. Depending on how close they are, that could raise their ETA to as much as six months, or lower it to as little as six days,” Allura explained.

“Yet they’re most likely on the longer end of the spectrum, right?” Finn asked. “I mean, a whole solar neighborhood is a lot to look through, so…?”

“For the Galra? That’s nothing.” Keith crossed his arms. “If they knew exactly where we were at this moment, it’d take them at most a day to get here, including the time it would take for them to finish battle preparations. They’re expecting Earth to be completely defenseless, and as of right now, it might as well be.”

 

“What about Voltron? You’ve been talking it up to be the only thing that can stop the Galra. I’d wager that that’s the best defense we could have,” Vincent spoke up.

“Yeah, except for the fact that every other time we’ve had an altercation with the Galra, it was in their best interests not to destroy the planet we were fighting on or around because it had a resource they could use. When it comes to Earth, they’re just going to drain it of its quintessence, blow it up if necessary, and book it,” Pidge replied.

Vincent sunk back into his chair without another word.

 

“While all of that is true, I am the first to admit that worrying about the Galra descending on us at any moment is not practical. Before we can do anything, we need to meet with Earth’s primary defense organization,” Allura said.

“We should go to the Pentagon first, and then we can meet with the UN. Can that be arranged?” Shiro asked.

“If you’re okay with waiting at least a month for either one of them, sure,” Merc replied, expression grim.

“A month? Are you kidding? This is an alien invasion we’re talking about. Can’t the bureaucracy be put on hold for that?” Pidge exclaimed.

“Take it up with the Commander-in-Chief,” Vincent shrugged.

 

“And before we talk about that, we need to finish this interrogation.” The Commander rounded on Allura, facing her with an unreadable expression.

“I was under the impression that we were already finished,” Allura replied, sitting up a little straighter and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Not quite. We need to take blood on all of you first.”

 

“Excuse me?” Keith shot out of his seat, indignant, but Shiro stuck a hand out in front of him and pushed him gently back into sitting. “Why the hell do you need to do that?!”

“What, do you still think we’re lying about our identities or something? Gimme a break,” Lance groaned, leaning back and letting his neck rest on the back of the chair.

"They really are torturing us, then," Hunk whimpered.

“It's for security reasons. You have to understand.” Gael stood up from her seat and began unpacking a small bag hanging from her hip. “We can either do this here, in the medical bay across the hall, or in the brig. You decide.”

The thickest tension of the day settled over the room. The Paladins glanced between each other, all of them equally uncomfortable with the notion, but it seemed they really didn’t have a choice. They could protest, sure, but if they couldn’t even get an expedited ticket to the Pentagon, it was pretty unlikely they could get out of this. Avoidance would only give the Commander ammo to invalidate their points, too, so it seemed they’d just have to bite the bullet. Or the needle, rather.

 

“Medical bay will be just fine,” Shiro said as he stood up and motioned for the others to do the same. Gael nodded shortly, repacked her bag, and stepped to the front of the room. She opened the door and beckoned for the Paladins to follow her.

When she came up to the door across the hall, she pulled an impossibly large keyring out of her little bag and thumbed through the keys until she reached the one labeled with a number corresponding to the one emblazoned on the wall next to the door. She turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and turned on the lights within.

The room was spacious, holding about ten beds as well as what the Paladins assumed to be cutting-edge medical tech for Earth. It didn’t have anything on the cryopods, of course.

 

“Take a seat on a bed and I’ll come around to draw blood from each of you. This should be quick and relatively painless if you cooperate,” Gael said, priming her equipment and approaching Shiro first, as he was closest to her. She took his right arm first, looking over the prosthetic with intense focus, but she dropped it after a few moments in favor of his flesh left arm.

Gael took his left middle finger and pricked it with the needle, drew a small amount of blood, and then moved on to Lance. She repeated this for Hunk, then Keith, then Pidge until she reached Allura and Coran.

“You have blood, correct?” Gael asked. The two of them nodded. “Good.” She repeated the process on the two of them. They both jumped in surprise at the feeling of the blood being pulled out of the cut, evidently not used to such a sensation, and they looked relieved when it was over.

“This should take about five minutes.” Gael placed the seven vials of blood in a machine that looked like an advancement the human members of Voltron seemed to have missed out on during their absence. She closed the lid, pressed a few buttons, and began the deconstruction sequence.

 

After five minutes of complete silence, barring the soft whir of the medical equipment and the myriad sounds coming from the blood test machine, the results were in. Gael walked over to the computer in the room and pulled them up.

Everyone crowded around behind her to her disdain - she made this very clear by rolling over Lance’s toes - and they watched her scroll through the results. Everything looked normal until they reached the fourth result down. The blood makeup itself was similar to the prior samples, but on the DNA level, there was a large collection of dormant genes that the computer couldn’t recognize.

Everyone looked at Keith, except for Allura and Coran who were pointedly looking anywhere else.

“Do you know what this means?” Gael asked, voice even. Keith swallowed thickly and shook his head. “Do any of you?” The question was clearly directed in Allura and Coran’s direction. Their heads snapped to attention, fast enough for some serious whiplash, and they both paled in unison.

 

“Well,” Allura began slowly, but she was cut off by the computer beeping frantically. Gael turned around to face the monitor. It was indicating a connection made with an encrypted network - the same network Pidge gave the code for to the Commander. Gael clicked on the dialog box and was taken to an e-mail server; there, an e-mail from the Commander herself showed up. It contained the document Pidge had been looking at on their tablet last before giving it to the Commander to unlock.

Pidge frowned, and they protested when Gael went to download the file, but Shiro held them back. Inside that document was a database containing a wide variety of information on the Galra and their society, an ironic read before finding out about their imminent Earth invasion. Pidge knew the Commander had looked through their shit before giving the tablet back, so of course she had taken whatever information she could get as soon as possible.

 

The computer beeped insistently again. The blood test window was flashing, so Gael switched to it to see what the problem was. Keith’s test results updated.

_Databanks updated. Patient #4’s genome error resolved. Unidentified dormant gene clusters updated - Galra origin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES! i couldn't resist lmao sorry keith  
> (also fun fact: i repurposed my ocs' names and likenesses for the other people in the conference room because i was writing in cold turkey writer and didnt think it was worth it to come up with completely new characters on the fly like that without another document to help me keep track of things so there you go)
> 
> QUICK POLL: how do you guys feel about me adding some lowkey romance to this? when i say lowkey i really do mean lowkey, too, as in very enriching but skippable experience. if i were to add romance, it would be sheith because even though klance is great, i don't feel like i could realistically set it up in time because klance is a 100% slow burn ship imo. full disclosure my plans for the fic do involve romance, but it could be taken out if you guys Down In The Comments (wink) have anything to say about it. or it could be 100% confirmed, for that matter, if you guys are chill!! thanks for reading  
> EDIT: okay ive gotten a pretty decent response to this and would like to say that my plans for the romance are as follows: its going to be so preslash it hardly exists. its pretty much for tension's sake and tension's sake alone. to put it into perspective, take how shiro and keith interact in canon, put them in a private setting where theyre more likely to get personal, and there you go. That's It  
> it's still going to likely be skippable but also worth reading. thank you for your responses and i hope this is a good fix for everyone because i dont want to change what i have planned TOO drastically (and i think you guys are going to like it, too!)


	5. ii: uncomfortable revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [act 2, paladins enter]  
> no one is having fun except for when allura kicks some doors down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to reiterate an edit i added to the last chapter on the "romance" issue: there will be some preslash for plot/character interactions' sake and not of a romance-y kind. like, it's not /quite/ Best Bros No Homo but it could be read that way without much effort. everyone's happy hopefully??
> 
> in terms of this chapter, we're going to be kicking off act 2, whose direction will become clear by the end of the chapter. this is going to be a pretty plot-light section of the story, but it'll be a time to catch up with the characters more than anything (also: expect the chapters to get longer.)
> 
> without any further ado, last time on yugioh:

The computer beeped insistently again. The blood test window was flashing, so Gael switched to it to see what the problem was. Keith’s test results updated.

_Databanks updated. Patient #4’s genome error resolved. Unidentified dormant gene clusters updated - Galra origin._

* * *

 

No one spoke. Allura bit her lip and looked to the floor while Coran’s shoulders drooped as he released a deep, deep sigh. Pidge and Hunk’s eyes had gone the size of dinner plates, Hunk mouthing something indiscernible, Lance’s whole body was shaking, with what emotion no one could tell, and Shiro’s back went ramrod straight. Gael, observing the room’s tense atmosphere, stood up from the computer and left the room.

Keith himself was composed for a few moments, but as soon as Gael left the room, it seemed reality set in. He stumbled backwards, shaking his head, and Coran caught him as his knees gave out and crumpled beneath him.

“This is a joke, right?” Lance asked no one particular, a harsh note to his voice that no one had heard out of him before. Pidge looked forlornly to the screen and back to Lance.

“Can’t be. My information wasn’t faulty.” They flinched when Lance rounded on them, uncharacteristic anger in his eyes.

“Can’t you be wrong, just for once? You fucking know it all.”

“Lance, what the hell-“ Hunk shouted, grabbing at Lance’s shoulder, but Lance slapped his hand away. “Dude, you did _not_ just hit me!”

“Oh fuck off, Hunk.”

“ _Lance_.” Lance froze. His eyes slowly slid over to Shiro after his booming command, and his whole face blanched.

 

“I’m sorry, I-“

“Don’t want to hear it.” And that was that.

 

Coran had guided Keith over to one of the beds a few feet away during this exchange, and Keith collapsed the moment his ass hit the wax paper covered vinyl. His head collapsed into his lap, hands covering his face, and he shook - yet he remained completely silent. Guilt creased Coran’s face completely.

Everyone in the room was silent again. Lance was sulking, glancing over at Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro every ten seconds or so with a pout on his lips, but the pout didn’t have the same childish vibrancy behind it as usual. Hunk had taken to sitting down on the counter a few feet away, staring at something beyond his feet with glazed eyes. Pidge gingerly sat in the rolling chair in front of the computer and put their hand over the mouse like they were going to do something, but after a few seconds of consideration, they sighed as if defeated.

Shiro hadn’t moved an inch. Allura looked at him with particular concern, eyes darting between his unreadable expression - locked jaw and unfocused eyes, but relaxed brows - and his prosthetic arm that twitched every few moments. She looked over to Coran instead, apparently satisfied with her analysis of Shiro, and he nodded at her. She released all of the air from her lungs, and then she began to speak.

 

“I must apologize. I - _we_ \- have not been completely honest with you, Paladins.” The words came slowly from her mouth as if it pained her to say each individual syllable, and she watched in slow motion as each of the Paladins’ expressions morphed in front of her eyes.

Hunk’s absentminded kicking of his feet stopped altogether. His head raised slowly, scared, and eyebrows creased in the middle in abject fear. Pidge’s entire body was angry, angrier than Allura had ever seen, and angrier than she ever imagined Pidge becoming. Lance had gone carefully blank, any trace of his pout gone, something that unsettled Allura deeply. Keith didn’t move. But the one that shook her more than anything, anyone, was Shiro.

Shiro’s neck snapped to her so hard she almost heard it crack. His shoulders sunk, Allura’s words the final straw that broke the camel’s back, and his eyes begged her to stop. His face was the picture of misery, and she felt sick.

_Shock. Distrust. Confusion. Betrayal._

 

“I’m afraid that Coran and I knew of Keith’s…condition before now. The cryopods analyze the organism’s genetic make-up in order to most effectively treat injuries and other ailments, and Coran looked over the logs after Keith was in one a couple of years ago, and he alerted me. We didn’t feel the need to tell you all because the genes were dormant and we weren’t in any danger of running into any triggers to activate them-“

“Activate them?” Keith murmured bleakly, his eyes peeking out from behind his hands. “You mean that I, I could-“ The rest of the words got caught in his throat, and he crumpled again. The rest of the room’s occupants flinched.

“You should have told us.” Shiro said coldly. Allura couldn’t make eye contact, looking down and away. “You owed that to us, as team members and friends. You owed it to _Keith_ to tell him.”

 

“Tell Keith? What if he already knew?” Lance shrieked, losing his cool completely. Hunk and Pidge, closest to him, looked at him with something bordering the line between confusion and disgust.

“What the hell does that mean, Lance?” Pidge spat.

“He could have known all along! What if he was just, just spying-“

“That’s fucking cold, even for you. I can’t believe you really just said that.” Hunk said, his voice just above a whisper but carrying more than enough power to stop Lance’s tirade in its tracks. The blue paladin’s face cycled through five distinct emotions in the next ten seconds, finally settling on something akin to shame, and he staggered back into the counter and stopped when the backs of his thighs hit it - when he finally understood the weight of what he just said.

“We’ve all known Keith closely for three years. Lance, Hunk, you’ve known him since the Garrison, and I…I’ve known him for even longer than that. Even if he is,” Shiro gulped, _“he is,_ he’s still the same. He’s Keith. That’s all that matters.” The way Shiro gave his speech was not so much to the rest of his room, but clearly more to himself.  
Pidge opened their mouth to speak, but one look at the other occupants of the room caused them to promptly shut it.

 

“The princess and I have spoken to each other at length about this, and I can say with confidence that it was neither of our intentions to cause the rest of you, especially not Keith, any undue harm. Yet, it seems we’ve betrayed your trust, and we both know that that’s unexcusable.”

“ _‘Seems’_ is a little light.” Lance huffed.

“So is _‘unexcusable.’_ ” Pidge added.

“We know. Believe us, we know.” Allura pleaded.

“I don’t know if we can do that. Believe you? Sorry, but that’s the truth, something you’re not that good at giving apparently.” Hunk said, his voice regaining its strength.

 

“Guys,” Keith’s wavering voice cut into the Alteans’ stunned silence. “Stop. It’s not their fault.” He was fully sitting up now, but his shoulders were hunched over at an uncomfortable angle, his eyes were rimmed with red, and there were fingernail marks from where his fingers gripped his forehead.

“You’ve gotta be kidding, Keith. You can’t take that lying down. We’re just trying to help you!” Lance replied.

“Help me? Is that really what you think you’re doing?” Keith exclaimed. “Accusing me of being a spy for something I had absolutely no knowledge of and, _quite literally,_ no control over? Thanks, but I think I can live without your shitty help.” Lance winced.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

 

“Look, we need to get back to the meeting room. Earth is still facing an invasion, regardless of Keith’s genetic make-up, and we’re the only ones who have the power to stop it. We can discuss this later.” Shiro ordered, pulling himself together and subtly ordering everyone else to do so as well. “We need the strength in our unity to convince Earth that it needs our help in the first place. That being said, it doesn’t mean that everyone is off the hook, but for now it’s not our priority, so I won’t be hearing anything else about it until we’re done here. Capiche?”

The rest of the team nodded. And that was that.

* * *

 

When they re-entered the room, most of its previous inhabitants had been dismissed. The only ones that remained were Joss, Merc, Aziza, Gael, and the Commander. Joss looked ready to book it, fidgeting with a few strands of their ponytail, but Merc was the complete opposite. He perked up when Shiro entered the room, signaling the other man to come over, but Shiro wasn’t really up to that right now. He replied to Merc’s enthusiasm with a wave, tight smile, and slight shake of his head.

Aziza, Gael, and the Commander were the picture of all-business. The Commander and Aziza were having a quiet conversation, but it sounded more like bickering - at least on the Commander’s end. Gael was standing perfectly still off to the corner of the room, but her eyes cut over to Keith’s a couple more times than average.

“Let’s wrap this up, shall we?” The Commander prompted everyone to sit down. “Now that we have the blood test out of the way, we can discuss a meeting at the Pentagon and United Nations.”

The Paladins looked between each other, unable to hide their surprise, and after confirming that they were all equally confused with the Commander’s lack of knowledge of the situation in the med bay, they looked to Gael for answers. She smirked in their direction and inclined her head minutely, but she didn’t say anything.

Well. That was something. Good or bad, none of them could determine yet, but it seemed she was on their side. Right?

 

“We all called up our superiors as far as meeting dates with each organization are concerned - SETI, the CIA, and NASA included - and they’re as follows. SETI is always available if you feel the need to reach out, but it's highly unlikely they'll be able to help. NASA doubts that they would need to meet with you, but if you needed to, they’re available three weeks from now. The CIA is the same - this invasion is a threat to the United States’ national security, but they don’t have many resources that would be helpful to you. They’re also available three weeks from now, but if we discover this invasion to be an actual threat and when we deal with it, you will be required to undergo another meeting with them specifically.

“The UN is helpful on the international angle if the help of the entire international community is required, but they have a waiting time of two months unless the emergency is immediate, in which case it’s two weeks. The Pentagon is the most relevant as far as the United States is concerned, since you did communicate to us through US internet property and land on US soil, so they are your best bet with the actual combat with this force. It has a waiting period of a month and three weeks, unless we reach a DEFCON level.” The Commander finished her speech.

The Paladins were far from impressed.

 

“Excuse me, did I hear you right? Is two months supposed to _not_ be ridiculous?” Lance echoed, crossing his arms.

“And I was pretty certain that the invasion was confirmed by now. You know, the whole threat we told you about that definitely wasn’t a bluff? That one. There’s no ‘if’ about it.” Hunk added.

“Not to mention that the Galran Empire is quite literally tens of thousands of years more advanced than Earth, hundreds of times the size, and so powerful that quite frankly, the chances of survival are bleak.” Allura said, standing up. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, I do not know what to say to you all.”

“We’re taking this quite seriously!” Aziza shouted, standing up too and putting out her hands as if that would placate Allura. “We apologize for the inconvenience of the timing, but it’s impossible for us to make an allowance unless you have visual proof of the invasion force and its power bearing down on us.”

 

“To get that, we’d need to get back to our ship.” Shiro said, standing up next to Allura. The Commander followed suit.

“And we can’t allow you to do that,” she replied. Everyone bristled. Team Voltron exchanged another set of glances, steely firm, and nodded at Shiro. He took a deep breath.

“Who said we were going to wait for you to let us?” The Commander narrowed her eyes.

 

“Please, Shiro, be reasonable. We can work something out-“ Merc began, but he stopped short after Shiro shook his head.

“While I wish that was true, it sure doesn’t seem like it. Not right now.” He softened his stance. “Sorry, but unfortunately that’s how it’s been laid out for us.”

With that, Allura turned on her heel, turned the door’s handle, and strode out, the Paladins following closely behind her without another word. Aziza and Merc cried out behind them; the Commander and Gael stayed silent. Shiro willed himself to ignore all of it - to keep going, because this was for the best. If they continued to be stepped on, nothing would get done, and Earth would truly be doomed then.

 

When they made it to the elevator, they were confronted with a keypad identical to the one at the entrance to the bunker. Allura turned around, about to break the bad news, but Hunk tapped on her shoulder. He was pointing to the first door to the right of the elevator, labelled with a small man climbing a set of stairs.

Allura grinned and jumped into action, making for the door. She busted it open with a well-aimed kick to the hinges, a truly terrifying display of power, and motioned for everyone to hustle up the stairs with her.

They weren’t sure how many floors down they were, but in the elevator car, it looked like it was at least ten flights of stairs down. It took them all an average of fifteen minutes to make it up the apparent thirteen flights, and by the end they all felt very grateful for their regular cardio training.

 

When they reached the top, Shiro put out a hand for everyone to stop. Straining to listen, he heard the faint pitter-patter of feet frantically climbing steps about eight floors down. Seems they were being pursued via stairs instead of the elevator.

They all took that as a signal to keep hustling until they were completely out of the bunker, so they did just that. They found themselves being spit out of the stairwell in a corner of the dark room they entered the bunker through, so following the light coming in through the cracks in the rotting wood, Allura found the front door and kicked down that one, too.

 

“How can you just do that so easily?!” Lance yelled, panting heavily. Allura couldn’t hold back a cackle as she started running down the hill again.

“Practice, love!” she shouted back, already a few hundred feet ahead. Lance made a noise somewhere between a strangled groan and a squeak, but he willed himself to keep pushing forward to keep up with the rest of the pack.

“So where are we going now?” Hunk asked between pants from the very back of the group.

“I assumed you lot would know, considering this is Earth and all,” Coran replied after spitting stray pieces of his mustache out of his mouth.

“Typical,” Lance wheezed.

 

“If we don’t want them following us all the way down this scenic mountain trail, we should probably break off into the woods for cover soon,” Keith suggested.

“Good thing I shut off the camera a while ago,” Pidge said. “That would have been pretty inconvenient to have them being able to follow us.”

“There’s still that camera at the front door, though, so it’s not like we can just lie about running from the government - _oh my God_. We’re running from the government. We’re fugitives,” Hunk rambled, becoming more and more panicked. “Guys, do you know what this means?! We’re _so_ boned!”

“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal in our version of the grand scheme of things, Hunk,” Shiro laughed. “It might make dealing with the Pentagon a little harder, I’ll admit, but it didn’t seem like they were too keen on us in the first place, so nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”

“Since when have you been so chipper?” Lance huffed. He was attempting to fall into step with Keith, but it wasn’t working out so well.

“Wouldn’t question it, Lance,” Pidge grumbled behind him.

 

“So are we going to get off this trail now, or…?” Keith asked. Allura veered off the trail and into the woods, making for a thin passage between the overwhelmingly tall, thick tree trunks. The abrupt change in direction caught everyone else off guard, and in the midst of making the course alteration, more than one person got hit in the face with the odd low-hanging branch or two.

They all ran off following Allura through the brush and trees, trying not to trip on briars every time she decided it was time for a new direction. Eventually they made it to a clearing sufficiently far away from the bunker and couldn’t hear the sounds of pursuit, so they deemed it safe to take a breather.

Hunk collapsed to the ground face first, rolled over, and stared at the sky with glazed eyes. Lance followed suit, not completely crumpling like Hunk did, but he groaned loud enough for a nearby squirrel to dart off into a nearby bush to hide. Pidge fell over onto both of them, earning a couple of ‘ _oof_ ’s for their trouble.

 

“Assuming they didn’t hear Lance just now, it’s fair to say we lost them,” Shiro said, hands on his knees as he caught his breath.

“So what do we do now?” Keith asked, taking off the helmet he put on during their break for it. He slicked his sweat-drenched bangs off of his forehead with an absentminded hand.

“Paladins, you should try calling your lions. They should be able to disengage the Castle’s hangar locks on their own,” Allura said. “We can figure out what to do next after we have a secured form of transportation.”

 

The aforementioned five all closed their eyes, tapping into the bonds they’d built with their lions over the past three years. Each one immediately responded to their paladin, revealing their individual mental expressions of worry and concern.

After their brief conversations, the lions confirmed they’d left the hangar and were on their way. It would be a matter of minutes until rescue arrived.

Those minutes passed slowly. No one was willing to speak now that they weren’t living off of pure adrenaline and the knowledge that appearing as anything but a unified front would screw them over. The crushing tension from an hour ago in the med bay came back full force, and Allura sensed it immediately. She wandered away from the main group to examine a small field of purple flowers a few yards away, and Coran followed her out of shared feelings over their situation.

 

Shiro took a few steps closer to Keith a couple minutes into their wait. He didn’t say anything or get within Keith’s three foot wide personal bubble, but the way his eyebrows anxiously pressed together in the middle made his desire for conversation painfully obvious.

He ended up not saying anything, and their lions arrived four minutes later. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge picked themselves up off the ground, and Allura and Coran pulled themselves away from studying Earth flora. Shiro and Keith looked at each other, making accidental eye contact, and Keith looked away sharply.

No one said anything as they each boarded the lions. Pidge waved Allura over to join them in the Green Lion, and Hunk wordlessly let Coran in Yellow.

 

Shiro gave the command to ascend above the cloud line for cover, and everyone did just that.

“What now? Are we going to stop somewhere to talk, or are we going to just hang out here until we can think of a plan?” Hunk asked.

“Well, what does everyone else think?” Shiro tacked on his own question. The comms were silent for a few beats until Lance spoke up, his tone soft.

“I sort of want to visit my family while I have the chance,” he said. “We don’t have anything going on right now, and after… _y’know_ , it’s probably for the best that we all sit out of the game for a bit.”

“It could be dangerous,” Keith warned. “They’re probably guessing we’re going to do that.”

“Just two nights. That’s all I’m asking for.”

 

Lance’s proposition was silently considered. Hunk and Pidge looked just as on board as Lance was, but Keith was frowning. Judging by the looks on Allura, Shiro, and Coran’s faces, they seemed the most on the fence.

“Two nights. But that’s it.” Shiro put on a steely, authoritative facade as he said it, but his tone couldn’t hide his own anticipation for seeing his family. “On one condition: we need a safe spot to regroup. Any ideas?”

“We can meet up at my house.” Lance offered as soon as the words came out of Shiro’s mouth, his smile putting out enough watts to power the Castle on its own.

“You sure your family’s going to be okay with that?”

“Of course. Mama loves watching new people try her cooking.”

 

So the plan was almost set. Lance was off to Florida, Pidge and Allura to Minnesota, Hunk and Coran to Hawaii, and Shiro to California. The only problem was Keith.  
He never mentioned his own family when the topic was brought up, so it was assumed to be a sore subject and never pressed upon. That was territory even Lance didn’t dare tread.

“You can come with me, Keith. I’m sure my parents would be very happy to see you again,” Shiro offered. Keith stammered out his reply.

“I dunno, they’re probably going to be really wrapped up in seeing you, their thought-dead son, again and I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he said, looking off to the side of the screen. Shiro sighed.

“You wouldn’t be intruding. I insist.”

It didn’t take much to convince Keith after all.

 

The Paladins said their goodbyes and parted ways. In that moment, it seemed that maybe even the bleakest of situations might have silver linings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's family time!!!!! yay!!!!!!!! can't see this going painful at all :)
> 
> thanks as always for reading i hope you all have had a lovely day


	6. ii: family reunions part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pidge and allura go to a small farming town in minnesota, hunk and coran to a small, beachside neighborhood outside of honolulu, and shiro and keith to the suburbs of san francisco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO INSANELY LONG TO POST, BUT AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE LENGTH, I HAVE A JUSTIFIED REASON FOR TAKING SO LONG.  
> i wasn't expecting this chapter to end up this long when i was first planning (this should honestly be three separate chapters but i was too stubborn to do it another way after i got my beautiful plan all refined a few weeks ago), so i hope you enjoy my blood, sweat, and tears  
> (and yes, we're definitely going to see lance's family, but they're going to get their own chapter right after this)
> 
> anyway, without further ado, the first three families:

Allura figured it would probably take about ten minutes to make it to their destination, a small town in some place called “Minnesota,” if they went a reasonable speed for Earth’s atmosphere and gravity. She wondered if Pidge was going to take into account Earth’s own aircraft and go a little slower to not spook them, but judging by how quickly the clouds passed them by, that wasn’t their priority.

Allura bit her lip; she certainly understood Pidge’s hurry. For one, they would be seeing their mother for the first time in years - a woman who was likely distraught over losing her entire immediate family in a single year - but there was the matter of her own mistake in this equation. She almost wished she could have just returned to the castle instead of coming along on this venture, but Pidge did send her a half-smile when they were setting the course for their hometown. That was the only thing keeping her from requesting Pidge just drop her off in some major city and let her just blend in with the crowd and explore instead of imposing like she was.

 

“I don’t know if my mom is even going to still be in our house,” Pidge said, breaking the silence. Allura furrowed her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t know where else to check, though. Almost all of my relatives on my mom’s side live on the big family plot of land, too, so I can’t imagine her being anywhere else, yet I’m still worried. You know?”

“Yes, I do.” Allura couldn’t bring herself to say much more. Pidge continued speaking.

“I’m kind of scared of going back. I sort of…left without telling her much when I snuck into the Garrison, since I wasn’t expecting to be gone for very long. In space, I managed to forget about that until a few months in, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks,” they said. Their hands were shaking on the controls, but the lion continued flying steady. “Nothing I could do about it, though, even if I did worry about her every single day after that. Now that I’m actually going to be seeing her again, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

 

Allura felt the guilt from earlier come rushing back full force, nearly knocking her off her feet. First she’d betrayed Pidge’s trust, and now she was here when Pidge deserved someone more comforting like Shiro or Hunk. She couldn’t be doing anything but making the situation even worse, and she wasn’t sure if saying something more than confirmation that she was listening would aggravate the situation or not, and she was even less sure about testing out her theory on the outcome.

“Look, Allura, I can tell you’re still upset about earlier. Even though I’m not exactly over it myself, I’m going to do us both a favor and put it behind me for the next couple days so we don’t both burst a blood vessel dancing around each other, so I’d suggest you do the same,” Pidge said, swallowing the waver that previously occupied their voice. They turned around to look her in the eyes. “The last thing I’m going to say on it for now is while I’m still pissed and feeling kind of betrayed, I do understand why you did what you did. One hundred percent. So don’t beat yourself up over it, okay?”

 

“Of course. Thank you,” Allura replied, shocked by how quiet her voice was. Pidge gave her their signature half-smile yet again and turned back to the controls.

“No problem. And anyway, my mom will love you, I’m sure.”

“I…I hope so.”

 

Pidge’s inner strength, or at the very least their ability to put on a brave face, still shocked Allura to this day, and she was grateful to have such a strong-willed Paladin at her side. Even though each of the Paladins were incredibly useful and wonderful people, Allura wouldn’t hesitate to admit that she did have a soft spot for Pidge. When she said all those rotations ago that she felt a sort of kinship for Pidge, she wasn’t completely lying to get information out of them - it really was true that she felt a connection with them and continued to feel that even now.

Pidge, up until very recently, seemed to reciprocate that companionship, too. Even though she was still as ashamed as could be, Allura couldn’t be happier that there was hope for their friendship in the future. She only hoped it was the same for the rest of the Paladins.

 

“Okay, we’re coming on in for the descent. I’m going to park Green in the woods out behind the house with their cloak up and hope it stays up after we get out,” Pidge said, pushing the joysticks down and forward. Allura braced herself against a less-important control panel. While she trusted Pidge’s piloting ability, she didn’t want to be caught in a trip onto the dash today.

Green settled in between two thick trees, already cloaked, and opened its mouth for the two to exit. Allura was already in awe at how similar the foliage was over here, yet how subtly different it was at the same time. A large lake was a couple hundred yards in the distance, and an even larger open field was a couple hundred yards in the other direction.

“This whole area used to be farmland that’s been in my mom’s side of the family for probably forever,” Pidge said, pointing off to the big field. “The rest of the family lives in the houses surrounding it, and in the summer I used to have sleepovers in the cabin on the edge of the field over there.” They pointed off to a little dilapidated building against the treeline.

“It’s very lovely,” Allura remarked, looking around slowly and taking in the whole area. It didn’t have the same rolling hills and flower fields that the part of Altea she hailed from was famous for, but it held the same homey feeling that was her favorite part of it.

 

When it seemed Green would stay hidden for as long as the two of them needed them to, Pidge set off through the woods towards the closest house. It wasn’t too long a trek, but most of Allura’s energy was spent during their escape not half an hour ago, so by the time they reached the back door, she was ready to lie down.

Pidge hesitated at the door, holding their clenched fist up in the air for ten seconds, but a quick glance back at Allura had them swallowing whatever it was stopping them and rapping their knuckles on the paned glass.

“I’m coming,” a voice called from inside. Pidge’s back stiffened immediately and their breath quickened audibly, but when their mom came into view, they all but melted. Allura stepped off to the side.

 

Anne Holt opened the door and stared at Pidge for a solid thirty seconds, but then her eyes went impossibly wide.

“Hi Mom,” they said, quietly, and quirked the half-smile.

“Oh my God, baby,” Anne babbled. She took up her child in her arms, lifting them off the floor, and mumbled on and on about how much she missed them and how worried she was the whole time. Pidge couldn’t say much because they were already crying.

When Anne finally let go, she threaded her fingers through Pidge’s hair and laughed.

“Wow, this sure came off in a hurry,” she remarked, fluffing up the ends and beaming down at Pidge. They frowned a little and compulsively pulled at their especially uneven bangs.

“I wasn’t worried about how even it was before, and it just kinda stuck, I guess,” they said. Anne laughed again, but it slowed to a stop when she noticed Allura standing off to the side, watching the exchange with tears of her own in her eyes.

 

“Oh, you’re…you’re that princess!” Anne exclaimed, turning to her. “The video wasn’t fake, then.”

“No, unfortunately. But I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Holt - Pidge has told me a lot about you.”

“Pidge?” Anne echoed. She looked over to Pidge, who was violently waving her arms in a cross at Allura. “Oh, right. That’s the name you were using when you snuck into the Garrison, right Katie?” Her voice adopted a much more “stern mother”-ly quality.

“Yeah,” Pidge replied, deflating. “But I kinda…go by it all the time now.” Anne was silent for a moment to consider that, but she nodded a moment later.

“Pidge it is, then. How about you both come inside?”

 

Pidge and Allura followed her inside - Pidge was beaming now, any anxiety from earlier seeming to have vanished - and Pidge immediately plopped down on the couch. Allura tentatively sat on the edge of it, unsure of where the boundaries for this visit were.

“Gee, I almost forgot how fast it gets cold up here,” Pidge remarked. “It’s only October and its already pretty frigid.”

“October?” Allura asked.

“Yeah, we’ve told you about Earth’s solar calendar before, right? October is one of the autumn months. It usually isn’t that cold in most places in the US now, but because we’re in Minnesota, it’s already breaking the temperature limits of, say, Lance.” Pidge explained. “I, on the other hand, love it like this.”

 

“Really? You used to always complain about your toes freezing,” Anne said as she entered the room with a teapot and three mugs. Pidge scowled but didn’t retort. “Princess, do you drink tea?”

“Please, call me Allura. And no, I can’t say I have, but I’d love to try it.” She took a steaming mug, blew on it, and took a drink. “Oh, this reminds me of a drink the Galra used to serve at diplomatic meetings! It’s very good.”

“The Galra? Aren’t those the aliens trying to invade us?” Anne asked, skeptical.

“They weren’t always like that. A very, very long time ago, I would go with my father to the central planet of their empire once every two years for diplomatic meetings, but I doubt you want to hear about that. Very stuffy.” Allura took another sip.

 

“That reminds me; someone has to fill me in on the past three years,” Anne said, rounding on Pidge. Allura winced at how Pidge’s facial expression blew up and shrank with the realization.

They spent the next couple hours explaining themself to their mother, who seemed angry, but also rather impressed. Allura wasn’t quite sure how to read her, but she did know that she desperately wanted to leave. The longer the conversation went on the less she felt like she should be in the room. When they approached the subject of Pidge’s brother and father, Allura really wanted to bolt, but a quick, sidelong glance from Pidge kept her there. 

“…so over three years, I still don’t know where they are, even if I have gotten close a few times.” They finished with a deep breath, eyes glassy with unshed tears. Their eyes had only just lost their redness a short while ago from their first cry, and here it was back again.

 

Anne didn’t say anything for a while. Allura started feeling a little irritated at her silence - even if she did understand why she wasn’t saying anything - because it was clearly making Pidge feel even worse. Just before Allura was about to inject her own two cents into the conversation, Anne finally spoke up.

“While I’m still very, _very_ angry that you left without telling me a single thing, and then going and getting yourself in so much trouble, and then only coming back when the Earth is in danger…I’m very proud of you. So, _so_ proud.”

Allura let go a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Pidge immediately shot up out of their seat on the couch, abandoning their long-empty mug, and hugged their mother again for dear life. Anne hugged back just as hard, if not harder, and that was when Allura felt it was safe to go outside. She didn’t want to intrude on that moment.

 

Allura pulled up a chair on the back porch and looked out across the wooded backyard. She left the door cracked so she could still get back inside if she was needed, and that meant that she could still faintly hear what was going on inside. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop; she just so happened to overhear almost everything is all.

Pidge and Anne were talking softly about something, likely Commander and Matt Holt, and it sounded like both of them were still crying. Allura had to hold the bridge of her nose and breath slowly in and out of her mouth to keep herself from joining in too.

The conversation eventually shifted so that Anne was the primary speaker, and Allura couldn’t make most of it out, but it seemed like she had been trying to get the Galaxy Garrison to give her more information about Pidge and the other Holts’ disappearances over the past three years to no avail. Pidge filled in some knowledge gaps, but the conclusion between the two of them was a resounding _‘who knows.’_

 

Shortly after that, it went quiet in the room. Pidge emerged from the threshold and stood next to Allura, silent for a moment, and then she tapped the princess on the shoulder.

“You didn’t have to come out here in the first place, but if you want, we’re about to have dinner. You’re welcome back inside,” they said. Allura smiled, looking up at them from her chair, and stood.

“That would be lovely. Thank you.” So they went inside.

 

Going farther back into the house than they were before, Allura was met with a small table set for three people in the center of a room covered in windows and family pictures. The room felt like it hadn’t been used in a while.

Anne came in with a giant pot steaming with something, and the smell hit Allura’s nose quick and sharp. She’d never smelled anything quite like it before, and it _was…indescribable._

“Bet you can’t get good ol’ chicken soup up in space, huh?” Anne asked, setting the pot down in the center of the table and stirring its contents with a ladle. “You’re not vegetarian, right?” She turned to Allura, slight fear written across her face.

“No - I generally do not eat meat, but I’m not averse to it,” Allura replied. Anne breathed a deep sigh of relief. “It smells wonderful - thank you.”

“Oh, it’s no big deal. I make it in bulk and then heat it up for more meals later. There’s honestly too much of this stuff hanging around,” Anne said, barking a laugh. “Go ahead and get yourself some.”

 

Pidge served themself first, taking four heaping ladlefuls of soup and immediately digging in, manners be damned. They groaned after swallowing the first spoonful.

“It’s been so long. I forgot how good food that isn’t goo tastes.” They snapped their eyes over to Allura. “No offense. The goo grew on me, I’ll admit, but nothing beats non-gelatinous, genuinely flavorful sustenance.”

“Goo?” Anne echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“The Castle’s food replicators are unfortunately limited to only nutrient goo, so we prepare food beyond that very rarely,” Allura said, and Anne pursed her lips, likely trying to imagine what that was like.

 

Allura dipped her spoon into the bowl and brought it up when it was filled with some of the bowl’s colorful contents. It was a clear, green-brown broth with many things floating in it, her spoon containing circular orange vegetable slices and hunks of light meat. She delicately brought the spoon to her lips, ate the contents, and had to pause.

It was totally unlike anything else she’d experienced before, and she loved it. Immediately she went in for more and at least had the capacity to be slightly embarrassed when she downed half of her serving in five minutes flat. Looking up, she blushed when she saw the amused smile on Anne’s face.

“I take it you like it,” she said, wry.

“Yes, that’s very true. Now I understand what the Paladins were missing when they complained about the goo,” Allura replied, sheepish. Pidge huffed a laugh.

 

The rest of dinner went on in a similar fashion, with Allura making comments about her experience on Earth so far - barring the less comfortable experiences, of course. Anne told her about the local flora and fauna, highlighting the fish in the lake and the family of birds that kept nesting on the front stoop, as well as offering to show Allura around her flower garden.

Pidge eventually asked how the rest of the family was doing, and Anne sobered up. She mentioned that everyone missed them, and a thick silence blanketed the table, but Anne averted a situation like the one earlier by mentioning some antic that Pidge’s cousins got into a couple weeks earlier. Allura saw Pidge breathe a subtle sigh of relief.

Conversation slowed down considerably after that. Anne tried to ask Allura about space, but it was hard to explain most things without getting too hairy with the terminology or background information. It was also difficult to ask Anne about Earth because while Allura knew some from listening to the Paladins talk about their home planet, there were just too many questions to ask. And on top of that, Anne couldn’t possibly know everything.

 

When they hit a particularly slow spot, Pidge started fumbling around with their Paladin suit. They retrieved a small communicator from the same pocket they kept the tablet from earlier in, and they placed it on the table. Anne, who just finished putting the soup in a container and back in the fridge, walked over to take a look.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s a communicator. It’s wired directly to my helmet, so if you ever need me, or I ever need you, we have a direct line. It’s encrypted, too, which is a bonus.” Pidge slid the communicator in Anne’s direction.

“Does it work when you’re…out in space?” Anne picked up the device and moved it around in her hands experimentally.

“To a degree. If we’re on like, the other side of the universe, probably not, but if we’re in the galactic neighborhood, it should. I tried boosting the signal as best I could, so even I don’t really know its limits yet,” Pidge said, standing up to help their mom with the controls. “Some of it’s in Altean, so bear with me.”

 

Pidge explained the basic functions of the communicator to their mom while Allura sat back and watched them talk. The way they interacted reminded her strongly of her relationship with her own father, and even though it was three years ago that she had to destroy his terminal, it felt like it was just yesterday watching the Holts.

Swallowing the weight growing in her chest, Allura forced herself to keep her mind on the present. The old grief would have to wait. Pidge had finished explaining how the comm worked to their mom and made sure it was working properly, and now they were looking to her.

“So, you want to go out by the lake, Allura?” Pidge asked.

“I think I’m going to need some helpers with the dishes first,” Anne cut in. Pidge groaned, but after Anne turned around, satisfied, Allura could have sworn she saw happy tears welling in Pidge’s eyes. She smiled and patted them on the back, and they both walked into the kitchen to help dry.

* * *

  
“So, Hawaii, huh?” Coran leaned up against the left side of the Yellow Lion’s walls, arms and feet crossed. His position was very precarious, and Hunk was afraid he was going to fall if they hit the least amount of turbulence. Good thing they’d only be flying for fifteen minutes max.

“Yeah, Hawaii. Eight islands all in a row, with a ton of smaller islands and stuff around it - lots of beaches and volcanoes. I honestly didn’t think I’d see it again,” Hunk said, his eyes getting misty. He was immensely grateful to Lance for suggesting they take a family break, so much so that he wasn’t even that bothered with having Coran coming with him.

 

He and Coran usually got on pretty well, but right now, Hunk wasn’t sure how he felt about the guy. You don’t just get over being lied to by omission over something pretty damn important for years, do you? He knew that Coran was sorry, something he made clear the second they got in Yellow and started off for their destination, and Hunk dismissed him with a half-acceptance of his apology just to avoid having the conversation right now.

Hunk figured he could make it 48 hours without totally losing it. Especially since he was going to be seeing his moms, brother, and sister again, which still didn’t feel real. He doubted it would feel any more real when it was happening.

 

“Volcanoes? My, that sounds like an adventure waiting to happen!” Coran exclaimed, trying to keep the conversation going. Hunk held back a sigh.

“I wouldn’t. The two big ones aren’t on the island we’re going to, and I don’t want you out of my sight,” Hunk said. A passenger plane passed them by, nearly clipping their side, and Hunk screamed softly.

“Slow down!” Coran yelled.

“Stop backseat driving!” Hunk yelled back, his voice shaking. Okay, he might actually take that advice since that plane came up on them way too fast for him to react, but he didn’t need Coran screaming orders at him. It only made his reaction time worse.

 

After the two of them caught their breath and it seemed like no more planes would be sneaking up on them again, silence fell over the lion. It was uncomfortable, crawling just underneath Hunk’s skin, and he felt the compulsive urge to strip out of his pilot suit and scratch his whole body. He didn’t, of course, but the concept sounded more and more tempting as they neared Hawaii.

Before long, they were closing in on Oahu. Coran hadn’t said another word, but he was intently looking out of the windows at the islands below. Hunk made the split-second decision to land on the water and activate Yellow’s shields. They’d just jetpack up to the coastline, Hunk relying on Coran being as light as he looked, and jetpack back to Yellow when they were done visiting.

 

Yellow touched down on the water and used their shields to float with their head just above water. Hunk got out of the pilot’s seat, and Coran looked over as he did.

“What’s the plan?” Coran asked.

“Well, Yellow’s going to hang out all the way out here, and I’m going to carry you to Honolulu,” Hunk said. “Good thing my family lives on the outskirts,” he grumbled to himself.

“Great! This’ll certainly make up for the lack of volcano adventure.” Coran rubbed his hands together deviously, and Hunk did his best to reign in a tired sigh. This would have been at least a little endearing before, but now Coran was just getting on his nerves. He wondered if it would be worth it to try and hide Yellow in a no-tourist zone or something.

It was too late for that now, though, because Coran was already motioning to have Hunk pick him up, so Hunk accepted his fate. He pulled Coran into a bridal-style carry - anything else would involve getting Coran too close to the jetpack - and exited the mouth of his lion.

 

As they started to drift over the water, Coran started asking Hunk questions about his home and family.

“Well, I live just outside of the capital city, Honolulu, in a neighborhood close to one of the nicest beaches. There’s a few resorts that are closer to the beach, but I would take all of the secret routes down to the more secluded parts with my older sisters all the time.” Hunk smiled a little at the memory.

“Sisters? How many?” Coran asked.

“Two. Between them and my moms, it’s a pretty feminine house,” Hunk laughed. “My grandparents, both sets, all live pretty close by, though, and my uncle was living with us when I left for the Garrison. I was last home about…five years ago? He was still there when I came back for summer break after my first year, so four years ago, but I doubt he’s still there. I bet my sisters have moved out, too.”

 

Coran was quiet for a bit after that, and Hunk couldn’t help but feel like he said something wrong, even though he couldn’t have possibly. He just answered Coran’s question, right?

“I had older sisters as well. They teased me relentlessly, but they ended up supporting me more than anyone else when I entered the Altean military,” Coran said quietly.

Hunk didn’t know what to say to that. Clearly Coran’s sisters couldn’t still be alive, and Hunk felt for the guy, but the topic was shifted down this road so abruptly that it was too jarring for Hunk to be able to properly respond. That, and he was more than likely to make Coran feel worse with anything he did from that point forward, so what was the point?

He was still mad about Keith, too, which was another justification for not saying anything and pointedly looking out at the blue expanse of ocean in front of the two of them instead of making conversational eye contact with Coran. A petty justification, sure, but since Hunk wasn’t used to betrayal, he was going to do something else he wasn’t used to doing either: being petty.

 

The longer the seconds ticked by, the more guilty Hunk felt for taking the petty road. He opened his mouth to say something when it finally overtook him, but Coran cut him off by speaking again.

“Are we almost there yet?” Coran joked, elbowing Hunk in the chest. Hunk shut his mouth abruptly; never mind, then.

“I don’t live in the middle of the ocean, so no,” Hunk replied.

Coran had some sort of bemused smile on his face, something Hunk couldn’t quite place, but he had a feeling it was self-satisfied in some way from the way Coran’s mustache kept twitching.

 

Eventually land came into view, and Hunk breathed a deep sigh of relief when they finally landed on the beach. He’d aimed correctly when they left, so they were standing right on the secret stretch of beach from his childhood, and just being there made the tears already start to well up in his eyes. They were happy, but they still hurt all the same.

Coran seemed to be absorbed in messing with a little crab on the ground, so Hunk walked up and down the length of the familiar beach to map it out in his head again. It hadn’t changed too much in his absence. It was eroded more in a few places and the dunes were differently shaped, but the same giant boulders hiding it from the tourist-y part of the beach were firmly in place, and the little driftwood fort off in the brush that he made with his sisters was rotting but still together.

“Hey,” Hunk called. “We can come back to the beach later, but…”

“Oh! Yes, of course. Lead the way!”

 

Hunk found the trail behind the two trees he and his sisters had carved their initials into at least five times each and beckoned for Coran to follow him. It went through a dense section of forest, the flora of which Coran was practically fawning over as they trekked through it, but luckily the walk wasn’t too long. The old neighborhood was starting to come into view, and when Hunk saw the first house, a shot of nostalgia shot through him like a bullet, except instead of pain, it was payoff for all of the homesickness and longing of the past three years off-world.

Hunk spotted some kids hanging out in the street and felt incredibly self-conscious all of a sudden, but he didn’t have time to hide because they spotted them just as soon as he did. They seemed to recognize him, too, since they ran up to him yelling at the top of their collective lungs.

“It’s Hunk!”

“Dude, what the hell!”

“I saw you on TV! You and that Lance guy you were talking about at Christmas!”

“Do the aliens really abduct people?”

“Are they invading already?”

“Hey Mom, Hunk’s home!”

 

It was overwhelming seeing all these kids Hunk barely recognized running at him and all trying to hug him at once, but it was the good kind of overwhelming, and he sunk down to greet each of them individually. They turned out to be kids he used to babysit - a couple were his own cousins which was a little embarrassing - and were patiently awaiting his return.

“They kept telling us you were dead or something, but you’re, like, _Hunk._ You don’t just die, y’know?” one of them said. Hunk glanced over to Coran after that, and Coran smiled at him, but it was tighter than usual.

 

Just as Hunk was adjusting to having fourteen year olds swarming him, he was thrown off balance.

“Hunk, you get in this house _this instant_!”

It seemed news of his return got back to Ma. Hunk winced, and the kids parted the way for his walk of shame up to the house. It was just up the street, hardly fifty yards away, but every step felt like a slap to the face. Coran was following closely behind. Hunk couldn’t see his face, but he liked to imagine it was sympathetic.

“Wait, who’s that guy?” Hunk heard one of the kids whisper as he and Coran passed, clearly talking about Coran.

“I think he’s an alien,” another kid whispered. “I hope he’s not invading us or something. That’d suck.”

Hunk gave Coran credit for ignoring them.

 

As Hunk finally approached his old house and looked his Ma in the face, his mixed feelings started bubbling over in a sort of terrible soup - one with too many clashing spices on too high heat - and it manifested in a lopsided grin and tears freely leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

He ran up to his Ma even though he knew she was pissed and that he was toeing the line of her wrath, but she met him at the bottom of the stairs and engulfed him in a hug. For her short stature, she certainly had a dominating presence in a hug, and Hunk realized that he missed that more than he thought he did.

When they broke the hug, Hunk babbling incoherently about how much he missed her, Ma snapped him over the head with the towel in her hand.

 

“Ow!” Hunk shouted, grabbing at the back of his head and rubbing. At least he was already crying so he couldn’t embarrass himself any worse with his reaction to the pain.

“That’s for leaving the solar system - hell, I dunno, the _galaxy_ even, since I have no idea where you were - without telling your parents! I would ground you if you weren’t part of that _Volt-whatever_ and had a job to do,” Ma said, crossing her arms and tapping her foot.

“Sorry, Ma, I didn’t mean to leave without telling you, but stuff was just happening so fast, and before we knew it we were on the other side of the universe, and we were getting attacked, and then…three years passed, and I just. Sorry.” Hunk wrung his hands and looked at the ground. Ma put a finger on his chin and lifted it so they were making eye contact. The crows feet around her eyes crinkled when she smiled at him, gentle now, and Hunk felt the waterworks coming on again.

 

“It’s okay, baby. You’re home now, and that’s all that matters to me. Your mother’s inside, come on.”

Hunk let himself be led inside the house and motioned for Coran, who was standing on the sidelines with a fond but awkward smile on his face, to follow him in. The house was just as he remembered it, the same amount of ever-present sand tracked in and the pleasant smell of Mother’s cooking hanging in the air, and it felt like a dream being here again. Ma disappeared into the back of the house, likely to fetch Mother.

“So this is what Earth homes are like…” Coran mumbled to himself, looking around and taking in the interior of the house.

“Not all of ‘em. They tend to vary. I was at Lance’s house a few years ago over the summer and let me say, that is a house best experienced.”

“Well, lucky thing we’re going to be going there soon, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, lucky is one way to put it.”

 

Coran put a hand on his chin. He had ‘ _I want to say something but I don’t know how to phrase it_ ’ written all over his face in bold, black Sharpie, and Hunk was close to prompting him, but Coran spoke up on his own eventually.

“I can wait outside or by the beach if you need me to. I don’t want to intrude on something intimate, and I can tell you’re not too keen on me at the moment,” he said, crossing his arms. Hunk’s face fell; now that he was actually hearing Coran being considerate and implying an apology for his actions, he felt the guilt from earlier come back full force and the pettiness disappear as if it never existed.

“You’re welcome here, I can assure you that, man. Even if, yeah, okay, I’m not totally…’ _keen_ ,’ on you right now, I’m not going to tell you to go hang out on the beach for two whole days,” Hunk replied. “And anyway, you’re interested in Earth culture, right? Well, I can show you a piece up close. In exchange for all that stuff about Altea you’ve told us over the years.”

Coran smiled, genuine, and Hunk couldn’t help but smile back. Moments later, Coran was completely back to normal, already browsing the room, making comments, and asking questions about the pictures on the wall and the knickknacks on the mantle.

 

Hunk fell into a rhythm of answering Coran’s questions and looking around the room himself, getting used to being back in his old house again, but it was broken abruptly when his parents entered the room again.

“Hunk!” Mother yelled, running over to him and grabbing his cheeks. She pinched them, testing if he was real he assumed, and he yelped.

“Mother, stop! That hurts!” Hunk whimpered. She removed her fingers and he rubbed at the violated flesh, but she took that opportunity to hug him tightly when his guard was down.

“That’s what you get for leaving us, young man,” she said into his shoulder. “You gave me a heart attack when you showed up on the morning news.”

“And that’s not mentioning the phone calls we kept getting in the middle of the night asking if we were going to ‘comment’ on ‘recent events.’” Ma cut in from the doorway. “I hung up too fast for them to clarify, assuming it was a telemarketer or something, but apparently I should have hung on a little longer.”

“I’m so sorry, but I came home literally as soon as could,” Hunk said into his mother’s shoulder, and she patted him on the back gently.

“I know, honey. I’m just… _shocked_ that you’re back, but I can’t convey how happy I am to see you again,” Mother replied. “We were told that you were…gone, in the other sense of the word, and we were finally starting to accept it, but now you’re back.”

 

Guilt shot through Hunk’s gut for the third time that day, colder and faster than the last two times, and he immediately broke down crying again into his mother’s shoulder. Ma came over and patted him on the back as he let go completely. Through his sobs, he heard the two of them start to crack, and even though it wasn’t the most uplifting experience, Hunk’s heart felt considerably lighter when the tears finally started to let up.

Looking over his mother’s shoulder, Hunk remembered Coran. He searched the room for the man, but he seemed to have disappeared either further into the house or, more likely, back out the front door to go wait down by the beach.

Even though he was finally in the arms of his parents, his singular wish for the past three years, Hunk couldn’t help but worry about Coran’s wellbeing instead of revel in the moment he’d been so fixated on.

 

“What’re you thinking about, baby?” Ma asked, her eyes searching.

“Oh! Uh, it’s fine. Nothing you guys need to worry about.”

 

His parents exchanged a significant glance, but in their non-verbal language they decided to drop it and commenced asking the unending list of questions about space and Hunk’s eating habits and if he was staying safe out there in the great beyond and how Lance was doing and everything else they could possibly think up at the moment.

Even though he was still feeling burned by Coran’s dishonesty, Hunk hadn’t appreciated the other man any more than how much he did in then.

* * *

  
The trip to Shiro’s parents’ house would only take a few minutes. Getting to the suburbs of San Francisco from the Rockies would take at least a few hours in a regular plane, Keith figured, and he almost wished that they were in coach right about now.

Keith’s mother, for the brief time he was living with her, was very close with Shiro’s parents, enough so that they knew each other in childhood. It was pretty superficial, especially after Keith was thrust into the foster system, but there was a solid month when Keith lived at Shiro’s house.

During his first winter break at the Garrison, Shiro insisted that Keith come home with him instead of just staying on base and being bored out of his mind. Keith reluctantly agreed and hated to admit it, but it was easily one of the best two weeks of his entire life up to that point. He still remembered it fondly.

That being said, he wasn’t particularly close with Shiro’s parents in the least, and Shiro’s return was the main attraction here. Keith would have preferred to just rough it on his own or even try to go back to his shack in the desert for old times’ sake, but when Shiro offered, Keith figured it would be useless to refuse. Shiro wouldn’t take no for an answer, so it was best to just give in early and not waste the time and breath arguing.

 

Shiro was being unsettlingly quiet, now, though. Keith could imagine why; he was seeing his parents when he likely had already come to terms with never seeing them again prior to this, and Keith figured he understood the feeling on some level. He’d done that with this whole goddamn planet, in all honesty, and it was more than likely that Shiro was knocked even farther off balance. He had been held captive even less voluntarily than the whole Voltron deal beforehand.

That was a bit of an exaggeration. Keith stopped thinking of Voltron as a kidnapping pretty soon into the mission, much sooner than any of the other Paladins did he figured.

 

That aside, they were quickly approaching the Bay Area, and they’d have to figure out a place to land any second now. If they were going for stealth, it didn’t seem like there were any good places as far as Keith could tell, so they might have to just plant themselves in the Shirogane’s backyard. Keith hoped it wouldn’t have to come to that.

“There’s some woods a few miles away from my parents’ house. We can park in there and walk into the neighborhood,” Shiro said, just as Keith was about to open his mouth. That answered that question.

“It’s like, four in the afternoon, though. Aren’t people going to be outside?” Keith asked. Shiro sighed into the comm on the other side.

“Yeah, most likely. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now it’s the best option we have, ‘cause I don’t know about you, but I think walking down the street is going to be less attention-grabbing than parking two gigantic mechanical lions in my parents’ backyard.”

So Shiro was thinking on the same wavelength that he was. That was good to know, Keith guessed.

 

Within a minute they were over the forested area Shiro was talking about; Shiro took a dive directly into the treeline, and Keith took a deep breath and followed him down. His lion purred when they shot through the treetops at first, but the farther they went down, the less pleased they got with the branches scratching at their paint job.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Not a whole lot I can do about that,” Keith grumbled.

“What was that?” Shiro asked. Keith flushed; he must have left his comm on.

“Nothing. Red’s just pissed that I’m scratching up their paint job. Speaking of, when exactly do these trees stop?” Keith’s hands twitched on the controls.

“Uh…right about now.” Shiro replied, jerking back so hard on the sticks that Keith heard it, and Keith followed suit. Red growled at him for jostling them so much, but he cut his losses and ignored them.

 

After making their less than graceful landings, Keith stepped out of Red and met Shiro outside at the edge of the woods. There was a trail leading out and into a nearby park. Keith recognized this area now that he was on the ground; he and Shiro came here once when a rare snowfall graced San Francisco. It was over that one winter break at the Garrison, and even though there was hardly three inches on the ground, it was enough for Shiro to convince him to try and sled down the giant hill in the middle of the park. The sledding itself was a total disaster, but the memory was a soft white tinted pink at the corners in Keith’s mind.

“What’re you thinking about?” Shiro asked, bringing Keith out of his reverie.

“Not much - just the last time I was here with you.” Keith replied, crossing his arms. Shiro took off his helmet.

“What, that time we, a couple of adults, tried to sled on slush? Jesus,” Shiro laughed softly. “That was terrible. The seat of your pants was completely soaked when we got home.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t looking much better, hotshot,” Keith grumbled. Shiro full-on belly laughed at that, doubling over, and Keith cracked a smile. “What? It wasn’t _that_ funny.”

Shiro got a hold of himself, shaking his head and wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. Keith took that as a compliment.

 

“So, shall we?” Shiro gestured to the empty dirt trail in front of them. Keith rolled his eyes but didn’t wipe the grin off his face as he fell into step next to Shiro. They walked at an ambling pace for quite a while up that path, looking around the park, and got lucky to find it mostly empty.

There was a father and his child playing around on the swings, but they were both too wrapped up in their own world to notice Keith and Shiro passing by. There was a kid skateboarding by that saw them, however, and nearly fell off after a double-take at just the wrong second. He took a nasty spill, and Shiro looked like he wanted to go back and help him, but Keith urged him to keep going. The kid would probably just want to take a picture, put it on the internet, and get their asses caught without meaning to, so it was best to let him be.

 

They got out of the park after fifteen minutes and found themselves in Shiro’s old neighborhood just outside of it. The walk from that point on would be simple. The only problem: Keith could feel the building tension in Shiro rolling off of him in waves.

The closer they got to his house, Shiro’s breathing picked up and became shallower, and his eyes darted around as if he was overwhelmed by his return. It was still only sinking in for Keith now, but he couldn’t imagine how jarring this was for Shiro.

Just a few minutes ago Keith thought he could relate, but it was clear to him now that whatever Shiro was feeling was way out of his league, and the fact that he was effectively useless for comfort was unsettling. What would he do if Shiro’s parents couldn’t handle seeing their son again and kicked him out of the house? Keith couldn’t plausibly see that happening in a million years, but he wasn’t thinking straight right now, so he was automatically jumping to the worst case scenario.

 

The neighborhood was surprisingly empty for an October afternoon - Keith had no idea what day of the week it was so that was probably a factor - which was lucky. Before long they were standing in front of Shiro’s old house, seemingly brought there on muscle memory alone, and Keith watched Shiro’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed thickly at the sight of it.

“You alright?” Keith asked, wincing at how ridiculous it sounded coming out of his mouth. Shiro was clearly _not alright_ , so there wasn’t any point in asking, was there? Yet Shiro just turned to him and grinned the same shaky grin he always plastered on before they headed into a particularly risky mission.

“‘Course. What about you? Ready?”

“For anything you need me to be.”

Shiro chuckled, canting his head to the side with a look of minor disbelief on his face, but Keith didn’t miss the glassy sheen on his eyes.

 

Taking a deep breath, Shiro walked up the porch steps and knocked on the door in one swift motion, not giving himself time to back out at the last second. A voice yelled something from deep inside, muffled and indistinguishable, but Shiro inhaled sharply like someone whispered it in his ear instead. Keith supposed that was the moment that it really sunk in for him; that was the moment that the bricks truly fell on his head, too.

Shiro’s eyes cut to Keith’s for a moment. It was a grounding gesture, and Shiro’s eyes were wild with something incredibly vulnerable and just as unreadable. Keith assumed it was sentimentality. It was a good look for him, even if it sent a dull ache creeping through Keith’s chest.

Pounding footsteps reverberated through the foundation of the house and into the porch beneath them. Before either of them had any time to hide or run away or do much of anything, really, the door opened to reveal the face of Hikaru Shirogane.

 

“ただいま…” Shiro mumbled, the hard exterior he put up when they were waiting absolutely crumbling at the sight of his father. Hikaru’s eyes went the size of dinner plates, but he crumbled just as fast, and he pulled Shiro into a bone-crushing hug immediately.

“お帰り,” he whispered back, barely loud enough for Keith to hear. That was the final straw for Shiro, who started sobbing freely into his father’s shoulder. He clung to the man for dear life, both hands clenching the back of his polo shirt in a way that couldn’t be comfortable, and Keith felt increasingly more uncomfortable as the seconds ticked by.

Eventually they broke apart and Hikaru regarded his returned son with a whirlwind of mixed emotions, and his gaze flicked to the side to meet Keith’s for a moment. He did a double take, shocked, but a smile bloomed across his face. He gestured for Keith to come give him a hug; Shiro, rubbing fiercely at his eyes, gave Keith a watery smile and a slight nod.

 

Keith stepped forward as Shiro shifted to the side and found himself staring directly into Hikaru’s face. The man had aged significantly over the years, the grey around his temples threatening to turn him all salt-and-pepper and the wrinkles in his forehead deeper than ever, but his eyes still held the uncanny resemblance to the kindness lying under the hardened surface of Shiro’s.

“ただいま,” Keith muttered uneasily. His Japanese was never good in the first place, as his mother never prioritized it, and it had deteriorated even more over the years.

“キース、お帰り,” Hikaru replied, taking Keith up in a hug just as fiercely as he had Shiro, and he held him just as close. Keith felt the tears rising in his eyes; he couldn’t remember a time that wasn’t a life or death situation that anyone held him like that, at least not since the last time he saw his mother. Luckily he held it together, he thought as the hug broke, but when he heard Keiko Shirogane asking what the fuss was from just beyond the door, he knew he wouldn’t last long.

 

“Come inside, you two,” Hikaru said, stepping back inside and motioning with his hand. Shiro looked down at his boots, frowning, and detached the safeties to remove them first before crossing the threshold. Keith followed his lead.

The inside of the house was simultaneously incredibly familiar and slightly different, noticeably so, and Keith couldn’t quite place what it was until he saw the framed picture of Shiro on the mantle surrounded by white lilies.

The lilies were live and looked cut within the past few days. Keith’s mouth set into a hard line - he knew what lilies symbolized - and it seemed Shiro noticed them too, because his gaze was fixed on them.

 

Keith moved closer to Shiro and put a hand on his back. He didn’t know how reassuring it would be, considering there was a whole suit of space between them, but Shiro leaned into the touch slightly.

“I’m fine,” Shiro said before Keith could even open his mouth. “It’s just…really weird seeing evidence that you were pretty much dead for four years. Not depressing-upsetting or anything like that, just… _weird_.”

“Whatever you say,” Keith said. He wasn’t totally convinced, but Shiro seemed to believe what he was saying, so it was good enough for him.

 

“ _Takashi_ ,” a voice behind them cried. Shiro whipped around so fast he had to have given himself whiplash, just in time to brace himself as his mother ran up to him and hugged him just as tightly, if not tighter, than her husband. “どうしたの, 隆？”

Shiro’s voice caught in his throat as he tried to reply, but all that came out was a sort of strangled cry as he broke down again. Keiko was muttering phrases too complex for Keith to understand in rapid, frantic Japanese, and Shiro was trying his best to reply through his thick sobs. It was jarring to see Shiro go from the compassionate and unbreakable wall of a front he put up one moment to a complete broken mess the next.

They stayed like that, Keiko lightly swaying them and speaking without pauses for what felt like an eternity to Keith. He made eye contact with Hikaru a few times, and Hikaru smiled at him, but there was such a deep sadness there that Keith couldn’t hold the contact for more than five seconds without feeling nauseous.

 

Keith was starting to question coming along in the first place. His flight instinct was screaming at him to book it, to run away from what was clearly a moment not meant for him, and inconvenient reminders of his own parentage were rearing their heads at the worst time. He was dirtied; he didn’t belong here, watching Shiro be welcomed back home, vulnerable and laid out for the likes of Keith to see.

Not when his bloodline was culpable for Shiro’s trauma.

 

Just as Keith was about to excuse himself and slip outside, Keiko was on him, catching him by surprise. She was probably saying something important to him, but the language barrier was blocking it out.

“I’m sorry; I can’t understand you,” Keith cut in, hating how his voice wavered. Keiko paused. Keith was about to apologize and try to pry himself out of her grasp, but instead she just gripped him harder and started prattling on in English about how much she missed him, how he was always welcome, how proud she was, and finally, how angry she was that he didn’t bother to come by the winter break that passed while Shiro was on the Kerberos mission.

Keith was speechless. His jaw flapped up and down, mouthing half-words, and the backs of his eyes stung until his tearducts were overflowing, the tears rolling down his cheeks. He bawled into the shoulder of her yellow dress, letting his hands reach around her back, and he let the world narrow down into the warmth from her body and his own emotional release.

 

“Okay, honey, I’m going to have to pull away now,” she laughed, watery, and patted his back a couple of times. They separated, and Keith became painfully aware of the itchy redness of his entire face and the grand display he just put on as he made cautious eye contact with Shiro from across the room. Shiro just smiled back, looking just as rough as Keith imagined he did, and a light swelled in Keith’s chest unlike any other that was there before it.

“You’re in luck, boys, because I was just putting the kettle on when you showed up. Hikaru, go get the kotatsu out of the closet while I get the tea ready,” Keiko called, already in the kitchen. Hikaru sighed deeply, a joke, and went over to the other room with what Keith remembered to be a ridiculously large closet. They must shove that thing in on its side, he thought derisively.

“Can we do anything to help?” Shiro shouted. Keiko laughed, and Shiro sighed and sunk into the couch. Keith remained standing in the middle of the room, but Shiro patted the spot next to him.

“Sit down, Keith.”

Keith tentatively sat down on the edge of the couch.

 

“Your eyeliner is smudging,” Keith said, pointing to the once-sharp wing that was a shadow of its former self now, black streaks tracked down Shiro’s cheeks. Shiro touched his cheek and swatched what came off on the white part of his suit; he laughed when he saw the grim results.

“Guess space make-up isn’t waterproof,” Shiro said, wiping at the spot until it disappeared. “I bet I look terrible, right?”

“No,” Keith replied. “You look like someone who’s really happy. Relieved.”

Shiro smiled, ducking his head to the floor, and said nothing.

 

Hikaru nearly dropped the kotatsu on himself as he dragged it back into the room a few minutes later, and Shiro had to help him set it down in the middle of the room. Keith remembered the table from that winter break before, the memory rushing back when he stuck his legs underneath the thick blanket draping the edges, and Shiro groaned to his left as he did the same.

“It would likely feel even better if you took off those space suits,” Hikaru said, gesturing to their Paladin armor. Keith immediately started disengaging the armor and piled it in a corner next to him, but Shiro was reluctant.

His right arm. It looked like a piece of the armor now, but it would become a lot more conspicuous - and therefore require an explanation - when he took all of it off. Keith took a leap of faith and grabbed Shiro’s right arm under the table, relishing in how Shiro jolted, and after a few moments, Shiro got the idea that Keith was trying to convey.

 

Shiro slowly disengaged his own armor, piling it next to him in a similar fashion as Keith, and took off the right side last. Hikaru watched him with vague interest at the various working parts and seemingly-magic-fueled disengagement mechanism, but his eyebrows shot up and then bottomed out when Shiro was finally completely undressed, right arm bared for the world to see. Luckily, Shiro’s scars - barring the one across his nose - were covered up by his under-suit slip.

Regarding his father, Shiro tentatively raised his right arm, set it on the table, and wiggled his fingers in a half-wave, a weak smile on his face.

“Is…is that…” Hikaru began, but he couldn’t finish his question.

“Yeah, it’s a cybernetic arm. It’s complicated,” Shiro answered. “I’m fine now, but it’s not exactly a story I want to tell right now. Later.”

Hikaru’s eyebrows were pinched in the middle and his mouth drawn up in a frown, but he let the topic drop for now, or so they thought. Keith and Shiro both breathed a private sigh of relief. This conversation hadn’t run its course, though, as Hikaru opened his mouth to speak again.

“Does it have something to do with the scar on your face? Your hair?” he asked. Shiro froze; Keith offered his hand under the table again, and Shiro took it with his right.

“Something like that, yeah. It’s a really long story, like I said, and it’s not…pleasant.”

 

Hikaru was decidedly not finished with this topic, borderline indignant now, but Keiko glided into the room with a tray of teacups and a teapot and a big smile on her face. The wrinkles on Hikaru’s face smoothed to a degree.

“Bet you can’t get tea in space, hm?” Keiko joked, pouring for cups and passing them around.

“No, all we had was goo and nunvil,” Shiro laughed. Keiko stopped mid-pour, lip curling, to look Shiro in the eyes.  
“Goo? _Nunvil_?” she repeated. Keith nodded.

“The Castle’s only food was this green nutrition goo stuff, so we only got ‘real’ food every so often, and that was always this weird alien stuff anyway,” he said, scrunching up his nose at the memory of Coran’s nights to prepare dinner.

“Nunvil is this…what’d Lance say it tastes like?” Shiro started, turning to Keith.

“Hot dog water and feet.”

“Right. That.”

 

Keiko shook her head and finished pouring the final cup of tea. She then directed the conversation elsewhere, asking Shiro and Keith questions about life on the Castle, their travels, and space in general. The conversation started out benign enough, but it quickly fell into less comfortable territory.

Eventually they found themselves at the topic of Shiro’s initial absence post-Kerberos mission. No one wanted to talk about it directly, but Hikaru and Keiko needed to know what happened, and Keith and Shiro both knew that. It didn’t feel right to Keith, though, telling them this early on in the visit. They’d barely been in the house for two hours, and that was the heaviest bomb of them all to drop.

 

“I’m going to be honest with you, Mom, Dad, when I say that before I got involved with Voltron - you probably heard me mention this in that livestream from earlier - I was not in a good place. I’ll tell you about it, answer any questions you have, but I need to…mentally prepare for it first.” Shiro sighed, unable to make eye contact. Keith watched Keiko’s expression fall and Hikaru’s grow uncomfortable and demanding again. “It’s hard to talk about is all.”

“How bad was it? You seem fine, besides that scar on your face,” Keiko said. Her tone, unsure and afraid, made Keith cringe. Shiro’s prosthetic fingers, still intertwined with Keith’s underneath the blanket as a security measure of a sort, slowly detangled themselves as he rose his right arm to the surface of the table. Keiko gasped as he angled it horizontally in front of her so she had the best view of it.

“It’s a bit more than this old thing, I’m afraid,” Shiro said, touching the scar on his face with his left hand.

“Oh, Takashi,” Keiko mumbled, running her hands over his prosthetic.

 

Shiro bit his lip, clearly struggling to find words to say, but he settled on silence when Keiko retracted her hand. He pulled his right arm back out of sight and underneath the table, and to Keith’s dismay, Keiko and Hikaru both visibly relaxed when it was gone. He understood that it was a big jump, sure, and it implied an awful truth, but they didn’t have to act so damn _disgusted_ by it. Shiro was insecure enough about it without their less than desirable reaction.

The air around the table was considerably heavier now, tension settling over their heads, and Keith fussed with the fraying edges of the kotatsu blanket with this right hand. Eventually Hikaru excused himself, likely to brood until Shiro was ready to explain himself, and Keiko apologized before going after her husband.

That left Shiro and Keith with their half-drunk, already-cold tea and the remaining tension in the room.

 

“I know what you’re thinking, Keith, so I know that you’re mad at them for reacting poorly, but don’t be. They just…” Shiro started, but he trailed off.

“Just what? Don’t know how to deal with their son not being exactly how they remember? Sorry, I think they’re great too, but I’m not cool with this. You can’t help your arm,” Keith said, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could screen them first. He clammed up when he realized what he said.

“I know that. Believe me, I know that.” Shiro gritted his teeth, his right hand balling into a fist. Keith flinched as if struck.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that if they’re that uncomfortable with your arm, they need to suck it because it’s yours. It’s a part of you just as much as your left arm is and that’s that,” Keith whispered, shifting his gaze to the floor. He saw Shiro stiffen out of the corner of his eye and braced himself for the worst, but instead, Shiro turned Keith’s body into a hug.

That was the third hug of the day for Keith, and he could get used to this.

 

Keith wasn’t sure if his ears were deceiving him or not, but he could have sworn he heard Shiro whisper small thanks into his shoulder; he didn’t say anything either way just in case he didn’t, but Keith kept the knowledge that he might have and locked it away in his mind.

They parted, and when they did Shiro’s eyes were glistening again. Any more of this shit and he was going to start bawling again too, Keith thought derisively, and he wiped at his eyes to preemptively stem the flow.

“Hey,” Shiro said, putting his right hand on Keith’s shoulder. “I don’t know if this is the right time for this, but I want you to know that I meant every word I said earlier in the infirmary.”

Keith’s brows furrowed, but after a few seconds it sunk in. The infirmary. Shiro’s speech. Keith’s life as he knew it falling apart before his eyes. Right. _That_. Shiro’s arm dropped from Keith’s shoulder as if it was blazing hot.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it-”

“No. It’s…it’s fine. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Silence stretched between them again, but this time the tension was long gone. It was a companionable silence. Keith let it sink into his bones, allowing himself some peace and quiet for the first time that day, and he heard Shiro sink farther into the kotatsu next to him.

The silence wasn’t broken when Keiko and Hikaru returned, unreadable expressions on their faces, and they seated themselves back down at the kotatsu. Shiro sat up again, and Keith could see the familiar way his muscles tensed. He was steeling himself for the conversation he’d likely been dreading for as long as they’d been back on Earth.

Keith wasn’t worried, though. He trusted Shiro and his judgment, and even if he was still angry with them, he trusted Shiro’s parents to trust Shiro, too.

 

Voltron taught him that even if the future looked bleak, things tended to work out the way they were intended when it was the five of them involved, and Keith was going to be there for Shiro now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translation notes (otherwise known as, my first year of high school japanese has seriously come in handy):  
> ただいま: i'm home  
> お帰り: welcome back  
> キース: keith  
> どうしたの、隆？: what happened to you, takashi?  
> lilies: in a lot of cultures (particularly western and, coincidentally, japanese as well) lilies are funeral flowers, white and yellow ones in particular when you're talking about japan
> 
> fun note: i based pidge's house off of where a lot of my cousins live because 1) it's a pretty cool set-up and 2) i dont know why but pidge kinda strikes me as a midwest kid
> 
> another note: if you're wondering why keith is being so touchy with shiro, i interpret him as the kind of guy to be generally pretty hands-off with other people, but when someone else is really upset, he gets VERY tactile because that's the only way he thinks he can help (like he's seen other people be helped by physical contact from other people and he's not very confident in his ability to comfort someone else with words, so he defaults to hand holding, for example). i would have explained it in-text but it would have come out REALLY clunky (who psychoanalyzes themself that deeply when someone else is close to having a breakdown right next to them?), so here you go
> 
> thanks for waiting/reading, and as usual, comments are greatly appreciated!!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and don't hesitate to leave a comment!! i weep with joy when i see them (i'm a really easy crier)


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